Strategic Program Delivery Director

sjindustries; Union (NJ); Hybrid; USD 160,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

South Jersey Industries (SJI) is seeking a Director of Strategic Program Delivery to establish the company’s strategic delivery engine and lead enterprise transformation across capital and O&M work. This role spans governance, budgeting, benefits realization, and change enablement to deliver value and NAV impact.

The director will partner with Finance/Strategy, enforce stage gates and risk oversight, and build enterprise-wide program delivery capability with transparent accountability across the

Responsibilities

• Oversee end-to-end execution of all initiatives within the enterprise portfolio; set delivery expectations, establish accountability structures, and ensure teams are resourced to deliver against portfolio commitments.
• Clarify accountability between strategy/portfolio prioritization and execution delivery by defining sponsor obligations, delivery team accountabilities, escalation paths, and handoffs to business owners.
• Ensure development and maintenance of integrated program plans, schedules, resource plans, change plans, and RACI matrices across the portfolio; review and approve plans for completeness and strategic alignment.
• Monitor milestone achievement, schedule adherence, scope integrity, and change readiness across the portfolio; escalate variances and direct corrective action.
• Manage cross-portfolio interdependencies; partner on delivery sequencing and change load management to protect workforce capacity.
• Provide oversight of risk identification, mitigation planning, and issue resolution; make or escalate portfolio‑level risk decisions.
• Lead execution-readiness planning for incoming strategic initiatives by validating feasibility, resource requirements, sequencing, business ownership, financial assumptions, and change readiness.

Job description

About Us

South Jersey Industries (SJI) is an energy holding company that delivers clean energy services to 700,000+ customers and businesses throughout 14 counties in New Jersey. As part of our core values, SJI is dedicated to being a community partner and developing innovative clean energy solutions to meet the needs of the future. To do this, we depend on our workforce of over 1,100+ talented, diverse employees who help us deliver safe, reliable, affordable clean energy for a better today and tomorrow.

At SJI, we believe that our employees are our most valuable asset. Whether you're a seasoned operations technician or an early-career legal professional, our culture, inclusive workforce, and leadership development and training programs will provide you with the tools you need to either kickstart your career or bring it to new heights.

Position Summary

The Director, Strategic Program Delivery is accountable for establishing SJI's strategic delivery engine and leading execution of the enterprise transformation and strategic initiative portfolio across capital and O&M work. The role integrates end-to-end program execution, delivery governance, financial controls, benefits realization, and change enablement into a disciplined function that converts enterprise priorities into sustained business value and NAV impact.

The Director establishes and enforces delivery governance, stage gates, decision rights, and program discipline across the portfolio; partners with Finance/Strategy on strategy, funding, and reporting inputs; and works closely with the Change Enablement CoE to embed adoption health, change saturation, and workforce readiness into delivery decisions. As the primary point of accountability for execution, the Director builds enterprise-wide program delivery capability while ensuring transparent oversight of risks, interdependencies, capacity constraints, and outcomes.

Essential Functions

• Strategic Initiative Delivery
  • Oversee end-to-end execution of all initiatives within the enterprise portfolio; set delivery expectations, establish accountability structures, and ensure the teams are aligned and resourced to deliver against portfolio commitments.
  • Clarify bright-line accountability between strategy/portfolio prioritization and execution delivery by defining sponsor obligations, delivery team accountabilities, escalation paths, and handoffs to business owners.
  • Ensure development and maintenance of integrated program plans, schedules, resource plans, change plans, and RACI matrices across the portfolio; review and approve plans for completeness and strategic alignment.
  • Monitor milestone achievement, schedule adherence, scope integrity, and change readiness across the portfolio; escalation material variances and direct corrective action.
  • Manage cross-portfolio interdependencies; partner on delivery sequencing and change load management and heatmap analysis to protect workforce capacity.
  • Provide oversight of risk identification, mitigation planning, and issue resolution; make or escalation portfolio-level risk decisions that cannot be resolved at the program or change enablement level.
  • Lead execution-readiness planning for incoming strategic initiatives by validating feasibility, resource requirements, sequencing, business ownership, financial assumptions, and change readiness before committing delivery capacity.
• Financial & Benefit Realization Oversight
  • Provide oversight of program budgeting, capital allocation, and O&M forecasting across the portfolio; drive accountability for actuals-to-plan performance and elevate material variances to Finance and executive leadership.
  • Track and report KPI performance and benefit realization relative to approved business cases; provide execution, financial, and benefits inputs that support executive, Board, investor, and Finance/Strategic Programs reporting requirements.
  • Implement and enforce financial controls, variance reporting mechanisms, and stage-gate budget review processes across all portfolio programs.
  • Partner with Finance to ensure disciplined cost management, accurate forecasts, and timely close processes; ensure financial reporting meets enterprise standards.
• Governance & Standards
  • Develop, maintain, and enforce program governance frameworks including stage gates, milestone reviews, decision rights, and escalation protocols across the portfolio.
  • Establish a portfolio operating cadence that integrates prioritization, resource allocation, execution governance, financial controls, change readiness, and benefits realization into a single management rhythm.
  • Standardize delivery templates, tools, reporting dashboards, and documentation requirements; ensure the change enablement toolkit and the program delivery templates are aligned and mutually reinforcing.
  • Ensure compliance with enterprise governance methodology across all programs and projects.

*Ideal candidate will have flexibility to report to Union, Mt. Laurel, Folsom and additional locations as needed