Public Affairs Program Management Office (PMO), Senior Principal - Hybrid - Evernorth

Public Affairs Program Management Office (PMO), Senior Principal

Description

As a member of the Public Affairs leadership team, this role will report directly to the leadership of the Public Affairs practice and will be responsible for overall business management processes and support the development of business priorities and goals. Key accountabilities for this role include:

• Serves as a critical advisor working in close partnership with the leadership team and key matrix partners.
• Acts as a connector across the cross functional team and business representatives to ensure key initiatives are prioritized, addressed and escalated appropriately, provide strategic guidance and counsel on organizational imperatives, align the leadership team, and drive the appropriate flow of decisions and information in furtherance of strategy execution.  Represent Public Affairs in any portfolio and prioritization activity.
• Serves as proxy on vital matters and act as a conduit between Public Affairs and various internal stakeholder groups.
• Drives the processes of annual strategic and operating plan, roadmap, project efforts, and major initiatives.

The successful candidate for this role will be a strategically minded, execution-oriented, a collaborative team player, a facilitator, an open-minded innovator, a self-starter, a good listener, a change agent, a fact-based critical thinker and possess strong capabilities to transform various ideas and actions into a synthesized set of business plans and processes for an executive level audience.

Core Responsibilities

• Strategic Leadership: Bring a mindset and set of skills that leverage creative problem-solving and strategic vision to help achieve long term goals. Inspire matrixed leaders from across the enterprise. Think strategically, anticipate future consequences and trends and incorporate them into the organizational plan.
   
• Operations Leadership: Work collaboratively across the functions and key leaders across various stakeholder groups to drive execution against Public Affairs goals. Monitors information flow; sometimes acting as a as proxy for leadership on project topics or decision-making process.
• Develop a deep understanding of Public Affairs and the broader ecosystem to inform strategy, actions needed from the team, and highlight/enable engagement efforts for leadership.
• Establish strong working relationships and develop a high level of credibility across the business, including other key leaders, and with matrix partners.
• Lead within a matrix environment, including internal associates and external partners throughout the Cigna enterprise.
   
• Management Process & Operating Model:  Owns coordination / curation of management process; responsible for ongoing implementation, adherence, revisions, etc.   Oversees team meetings, strategic areas of focus across the team and governance.
  • Facilitate and coordinate identification and fulfillment of key deliverables/objectives to drive incremental progress toward annual goals and programmatic initiatives.
  • Maintain metrics and scorecard to assess the operational and strategic performance
  • Ensure leaders are prepared for Monthly Operating Reviews and Quarterly Business Reviews. Hold prep sessions, provide templates and compile materials as necessary
  • Act as a connection point among leadership, providing proactive identification of opportunities and issues that could impact the successful execution of commitments
  • Clarify actions to accurately meet the needs of Public Affairs
  • Own and drive adoption of the Decision-Making Framework
  • Owns all leadership and cross function forums for forum/meeting management, including agenda setting, facilitation, and action item resolution

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s Degree and 5 years of related work experience required; prior experience leading management processes for a business unit preferred; advanced degree highly desirable. Significant Public Affairs leadership experience required. 
• Emotional Intelligence – Demonstrated strong EQ as evidenced by the ability to understand other people, what motivates them and how to work cooperatively with them. Proven track record of resilience, empathy, strong listening skills and the ability to work through challenging business situations in a highly collaborative way to drive the right business outcomes.  Possesses strong self-awareness and curiosity. 
• Anticipatory - Demonstrated results in being able to think strategically, anticipate future consequences and trends, and incorporate them into both a short-term and l