About the job
💼 Senior Program Director
Location: United Arab Emirates 🇦🇪
Employment Type: Full-time / Part-time
🌟 About the Role
We are seeking an experienced, strategic, and results-driven Senior Program Director to lead complex, high-impact programs and strategic initiatives within our organization.
The successful candidate will be responsible for providing executive-level program leadership, overseeing multiple projects and workstreams, managing senior stakeholders, driving program governance, and ensuring successful delivery against strategic, financial, operational, and business objectives.
The role requires strong leadership, commercial awareness, stakeholder-management skills, and the ability to manage complex programs involving cross-functional and geographically distributed teams.
🛠 Key Responsibilities
- Provide strategic leadership and direction across major programs and transformation initiatives.
- Establish program objectives, scope, governance structures, delivery methodologies, and success criteria.
- Lead multiple projects, workstreams, and cross-functional teams simultaneously.
- Develop and maintain comprehensive program plans, roadmaps, milestones, and delivery schedules.
- Manage program budgets, financial forecasts, resources, and commercial performance.
- Establish effective program governance, reporting, risk management, and decision-making processes.
- Work closely with executive leadership, business stakeholders, clients, partners, and delivery teams.
- Translate organizational strategy into executable programs and measurable outcomes.
- Monitor program performance, milestones, dependencies, risks, issues, and benefits realization.
- Identify potential delivery risks and develop mitigation and contingency strategies.
- Resolve complex program-level issues and escalate critical matters appropriately.
- Ensure projects and workstreams remain aligned with overall program objectives.
- Lead steering committees, executive reviews, governance meetings, and program status sessions.
- Provide regular executive-level reporting on program performance, financial status, risks, dependencies, and key decisions.
- Manage internal and external stakeholders and maintain strong professional relationships.
- Coordinate resources across business, technology, operations, finance, legal, procurement, and other functions as required.
- Oversee vendors, consultants, strategic partners, and third-party delivery organizations.
- Ensure appropriate quality, compliance, governance, and control standards are maintained.
- Drive continuous improvement across program delivery processes and methodologies.
- Ensure successful transition of completed projects into business-as-usual operations.
- Track and communicate program benefits, business outcomes, and return on investment.
- Support organizational change-management and transformation initiatives.
- Develop and mentor program managers, project managers, and other delivery professionals.
- Promote a culture of accountability, collaboration, innovation, and delivery excellence.
📊 Program Areas
Experience managing some or all of the following types of programs is preferred:
- Digital transformation
- Technology transformation
- Enterprise transformation
- Business transformation
- IT modernization
- Cloud transformation
- Cybersecurity programs
- Data and analytics programs
- AI and automation initiatives
- ERP and enterprise-system implementations
- Infrastructure programs
- PMO and portfolio management
- Operational transformation
- Customer-experience transformation
- Mergers and acquisitions
- Regulatory and compliance programs
- Large-scale organizational change
✅ What We're Looking For
- Proven experience as a Senior Program Director, Program Director, Portfolio Director, Transformation Director, or similar senior leadership role.
- Significant experience managing complex, high-value, multi-year programs.
- Strong program-management and project-management expertise.
- Demonstrated ability to lead large, multidisciplinary and geographically distributed teams.
- Strong executive stakeholder-management and communication skills.
- Excellent strategic planning and problem-solving abilities.
- Strong financial, commercial, and budget-management experience.
- Demonstrated experience managing program risks, dependencies, issues, and benefits.
- Ability to operate effectively in complex and rapidly changing environments.
- Strong negotiation, influencing, and conflict-resolution skills.
- Excellent presentation and executive-reporting abilities.
- Strong understanding of program governance and delivery methodologies.
- Ability to manage multiple strategic priorities simultaneously.
- Strong business and commercial awareness.
- Results-oriented leadership style with a strong focus on measurable outcomes.
🎓 Qualifications & Experience
- Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, Management, Information Technology, Engineering, Finance, or a related discipline.
- Master's degree or MBA is an advantage.
- Significant senior-level program or portfolio-management experience.
- Experience managing large-scale transformation or strategic programs.
- Experience working with C-level executives and senior stakeholders.
- Experience managing significant budgets and complex vendor relationships.
- International or regional program-management experience is an advantage.
- Experience within the UAE or GCC market is preferred.
- Professional certifications such as PMP, PgMP, PRINCE2, MSP, SAFe, or equivalent are advantageous.
💡 What We Offer
- Senior leadership opportunity in the UAE 🇦🇪
- Flexible full-time or part-time employment options.
- Competitive compensation package.
- Performance-based incentives where applicable.
- Opportunity to lead high-profile strategic programs.
- Exposure to regional and international business initiatives.
- Professional and collaborative working environment.
- Leadership and career-development opportunities.
- Access to senior executives and strategic stakeholders.
- Training and professional-development opportunities.
- Opportunity to build a strong professional network across multiple industries and sectors.
📩 How to Apply
If you are an experienced program leader with a strong track record of delivering complex strategic initiatives, we would love to hear from you.
- Please submit your CV and include your relevant program-management experience, major programs delivered, program budgets and team sizes managed, transformation initiatives, stakeholder-management experience, program-management methodologies and certifications, technology or business domains covered, and experience working within the UAE or GCC market.
Incase you would like to apply to this job directly from the source, please click here
Linked-in
Google