Lead Program Manager, Community Wishlist

LEAD PROGRAM MANAGER, COMMUNITY WISHLIST

About the Role

We are looking for a Lead Program Manager to join our team and manage our Community Wishlist program portfolio. This role reports to the Chief of Staff to the Chief Product and Technology Officer.  As the Lead Program Manager, you will lead the strategic alignment, design, delivery, and evaluation of critical WMF programs related to clarifying, communicating, and fulfilling features and fixes requested by the Wikimedia community. You will work across multiple teams, departments, and Wikimedia stakeholder groups to drive critical cross-functional and cross-departmental programs, turn community requests into overall impact, and guide teams toward impactful outcomes.  

The Lead Program Manager will oversee all aspects of the programs in their portfolio, including achieving alignment, tracking and resolving cross-functional dependencies, and resolving risks and blockers. They should deliver complex programs with clarity, efficiency, and measurable results. We are looking for someone with a proven ability to build strong relationships, align diverse stakeholders, have difficult conversations, and get folks to shared objectives. The role requires comfort navigating ambiguity independently.

This is a remote position working with internationally distributed teams.

Key Responsibilities

Program Leadership & Delivery

• Lead all aspects of planning, coordination, and execution of request intake programs across teams and departments.
• Track, support, and enable teams to deliver meaningful impact; establish clear metrics and/or milestones to measure success.
• Facilitate and improve - at a wishlist program level - the team practices, workflows, and processes.
• Support community organizations to implement related programming to expand reach with target audiences.
• Manage budgets and resources for intake activities, including contracting and managing external vendors and consultants as required.
• Manage teams across functional boundaries, both internal and external
• Maintain strong documentation and transparent reporting structures, ensuring visibility across all stakeholders.
• Communicate overall vision and direction of the portfolio to various stakeholder audiences. 

Strategic Planning & Capacity Management

• Lead capacity planning exercises, identify gaps and make recommendations for resource allocation or escalation as needed.
• Partner with Product and Technology leadership and program stakeholders to align priorities with strategic objectives and operational realities.

Stakeholder and Community Management

• Build and maintain relationships with community members, community leaders, movement organizations, and other diverse stakeholders
• Identify relevant stakeholders, develop a shared understanding of program goals among them, keep them aligned, and ensure they understand their commitments to program goals and other stakeholders

Program Evaluation & Reporting

• Design program evaluation plans
• Develop and report upon relevant qualitative and quantitative project metrics
• Evaluate success against metrics and milestones, and ensure clear communication of that in reporting.
• Prepare reports and presentations to communicate program outcomes and progress toward strategic goals, to both internal and external stakeholders

Qualifications

• 8+ years experience in community management and community service ownership, including a portfolio of past projects led
• 8+ years experience managing multi-stakeholder groups with staff, partner organizations, and volunteers 
• Proven track record of having positive impact on large teams and complex projects, effectively balancing competing priorities, and delivering results
• Strong program management skills: prioritization, organization, planning, time management, facilitation, problem solving, and decision-making
• Excellent English written and verbal communication skills and executive presentation experience
• Ability to build rapport and influence with distributed teams representing various cultures, featuring different communication and learning styles
• A commitment to and experience in creating a culture of equity, inclusion, and diversity
• Ability to engage with a large amount of complexity and move from ambiguity to action
• Ability to communicate and collaborate with both deeply technical and non-technical stakeholders
• Detail oriented with an ability to keep big picture in mind

Additionally, we’d love it if you have:

• Experie