AVP, MarTech Program Manager

Job Description:

Organizational Overview:

This role will be a part of the Technology and Operations organization on the Analytics and Marketing Technology team and will support the Martech Agile Release Train. This role will report to the VP of Marketing Technology.

Role Summary/Purpose:

The MarTech Program Manager is responsible for supporting growth and process improvement initiatives for the Marketing function. This role will require collaboration with key Technology Application Engineering leads, cross functional business leaders and our vendors or external suppliers. This individual interfaces with all levels of the organization and across product, marketing, technology, and other teams.  It will require functioning as a Scrum Master to one or more agile teams.

We’re proud to offer you choice and flexibility. At Synchrony, our way of working allows you to have the option to work from home, near one of our Hubs or come into one of our offices. Occasionally you may be required to commute to our nearest office for in person engagement activities such as business or team meetings, training and culture events.

Essential Responsibilities:

• Anchor and effectively apply the Agile Manifesto, SAFe core values, Lean-Agile mindset and SAFe principles to lead one or more high performing, cross-functional agile scrum teams.
• Skilled in operating within the context of a SAFe Agile Release Train (ART). Understands that a shared vision and direction is responsible for delivering solution outcomes and assists Product Owners, Release Train Engineer, and teams in this respect.
• Continuously strives to coach team and product owner to deliver higher customer satisfaction, improved velocity and delivery predictability, better system performance and enhanced ability to innovate, scale, and meet compliance requirements.
• Focus teams to establish flow, collective ownership and greater automation.
• Improves processes, products, and services supporting effective delivery of solutions
• Understand and communicate business needs to internal teams and to third-party vendors
• Promote high standards of professional integrity on all proposed and actual client business solutions
• Ability to deliver work in an Agile framework
• Walk new vendors through the IT certification process
• Remove impediments and coach the team on removing impediments. Resolve conflicts and issues that occur. Help the teams to identify and fill in blanks in the Lean-Agile-SAFe framework and to achieve higher levels of SAFe maturity.
• Well versed in all Scrum/SAFe ceremonies: Daily Standups, Backlog maintenance and Grooming, Sprint Planning and Review, Release Planning, Demos & Retrospectives, Scrum-of-Scrums, Inspect and Adapt event, and PI Planning.
• Forecast, track and manage project budgets, POs and invoices
• Establish and maintain cross-functional relationships and provide critical communication to key leaders and stakeholder
• Guide teams to agree on a Definition of Done - align teams around what quality means and how it is built into the solution.
• Understand technical requirements of projects and effectively manage resources, vendors and clients
• Act as a liaison across various business functions on Technology Marketing projects
• Resolve complex problems with limited coaching
• Execute new capabilities and technology
• Perform other duties and/or special projects as assigned

Qualifications/Requirements:

• Bachelor's Degree and 4 years of Technology experience or equivalent leadership program experience or in lieu of degree High School Diploma/GED and 5 years of IT experience.
• Experience in developing and implementing information systems and project management experience.   
• Minimum 4 years of experience in project management and/or scrum master with strong understanding of Agile.

• Expert in JIRA, JIRA Align and Confluence.

Desired Characteristics:

• Servant leader: garner respect from their team and be willing to get their hands dirty to get the job done. Superior communication, interpersonal and coaching/mentoring skills.

• Entrepreneurial: comfortable experimenting, being wrong, accepting constructive feedback, adapting, and moving on.
• Facilitative: lead and demonstrate value-add principles to their teams.
• Assertive: will uphold and evangelize the principles of Lean-Agile-SAFe-Scrum-Kanban-DevOps-Systems Thinking within Information
• Security and across the company. Ensure these principles and concepts are adhered to; be a voice of reason and command authority to make tough calls.
• Situationally aware: able to identify