Project Director, Strategic Initiatives

University of Colorado Anschutz

Department: Office of Grants and Contracts

Job Title: Project Director, Strategic Initiatives

Position #: 00847168 – Requisition #: 39674

Job Summary:

The Project Director – Strategic Initiatives is a senior-level individual contributor who partners with campus leaders, administrative units, and cross-functional teams to support and advance strategic projects across Financial Services. Reporting to the Associate Vice Chancellor of Financial Services and Controller, this role acts as a collaborative facilitator and trusted advisor, ensuring that institutional initiatives are thoughtfully scoped, effectively coordinated, progressing as planned and successfully implemented. While this role does not have direct decision-making authority, it plays a vital role in guiding project development, surfacing risks, aligning stakeholders, and ensuring accountability to strategic priorities.

The ideal candidate brings experience navigating complex organizations, a deep understanding of financial and research operations in higher education, and the ability to lead through influence with focused commitment to relationships and results-driven work.

Key Responsibilities:

Strategic Project Management Lead & Oversight (40%):

• Partner with project sponsors and leaders along with team members to provide project management for strategic initiatives and projects. This includes defining and tracking goals, defining actionable plans, resource contributors, timelines, progress and success metrics for key strategic initiatives across Financial Services including, Finance, Fiscal Compliance, Office of Grants and Contracts and Bursar.
• Coordinate and facilitate workgroups, task forces, and cross-departmental teams; ensure alignment of roles, responsibilities, and deliverables.
• Develop and manage detailed project documentation, including workplans, risk registers, and progress dashboards.
• Anticipate and identify potential roadblocks; escalate issues and facilitate resolution in collaboration with project sponsors and stakeholders.
• Serve as a bridge between operational teams and leadership, ensuring that project progress and challenges are clearly communicated and documented.
• Improve transparency, accountability, and execution of strategic initiatives.
• Serve as a champion of organizational culture, influencing culture change to support strategic and operational objectives. 

Special Projects (40%)

• Lead assigned strategic special projects within all areas of Financial Services that are time-bound and leadership sponsored. 
• Assist on metric and strategic goal tracking and reporting.
• Lead in strategic initiative implementations, including process improvement projects.
• Provide subject matter expertise to key internal and external stakeholders in response to complex, non-routine business issues related to strategic initiatives.

Process Improvement (20%)

• Work with the Associate Director of Fiscal Compliance and subject matter experts to facilitate and document process improvement initiatives that include analyzing current-state business processes and identifying opportunities for improvement, simplification, or realignment with policy or strategy.
• Contribute