Senior IT Project Manager - Data & Analytics Architecture and Reporting

Duration: 6 months to start

Job Description

• This is a delivery-ownership and program-control role, not a passive coordination or status-reporting role.
• The Sr. IT Project Manager is accountable for maintaining the integrated plan, running the operating cadence, driving action completion, managing risks and dependencies, producing clear documentation, and escalating issues before they affect committed milestones.
• The Sr. IT Project Manager owns the Interim Data Architecture and Wave 1 Reporting project end to end: the integrated plan, the critical path, a dozen cross-functional dependencies, and the decisions on KPI definitions and hierarchy mappings that determine whether the reports land on time and mean the same thing to both companies.
• The hardest part of this project is not moving data — it is getting two organizations to agree on what a metric means, how a hierarchy rolls up, and who has final say. You will drive that.
• You will partner daily with the Business Product Manager (the single accountable business voice for scope and acceptance), data architecture and engineering leads, security and compliance, vendor delivery teams, and regional business leads, and you will present regularly to IT leadership and executive sponsors.
• The successful candidate must be able to operate independently with limited day-to-day direction.
• This person will establish and run the workstream operating cadence, require timely updates from workstream owners, follow up on overdue actions, facilitate resolution of cross-functional blockers, and escalate missed commitments with a recommended path forward.
• The role reports to the Senior Program Manager, Technology IMO/PMO, and is a contract engagement of approximately 9–10 months with strong potential for extension into Wave 2.

Core Responsibilities

• Delivery Leadership: Own the end-to-end plan from mobilization through Wave 1 release — infrastructure, network, security, and IAM pre-requisites; data platform and architecture enablement; master data cross-mapping; pilot execution; and report delivery. Baseline it in the first 30 days and hold the team to it.
• Report Readiness and Release Management: Establish and track entry and exit criteria for each report migration. Coordinate data validation, reconciliation, technical testing, business UAT, defect resolution, business acceptance, deployment readiness, cutover, hypercare, and transition to ongoing support. Maintain a report-level readiness view that clearly shows what is on track, at risk, blocked, or ready for release.
• Critical Path Ownership: Own the critical path from the Day 1 hard dependency through build start and every report release. Know at all times what is on it, what threatens it, and what you are doing about it.
• Dependency Management: Drive and unblock dependencies across Cloud Infrastructure, Network, Enterprise Platform, DevOps, Cyber, Legal, and Compliance (SOX/GxP). Track ERP (ECC/S/4) interdependencies that can force pipeline rework and get ahead of them.
• Decision Facilitation: Run the KPI definition and hierarchy-mapping decision process so that the same label carries the same rules, inclusions, units, and calculation timing in both companies. Resolve the 4-4-5 vs. Gregorian calendar and close/forecast rhythm mismatches report by report. Force decisions; do not wait for consensus to arrive.
• Scope Control: Defend the P1/P2 boundary. Route every new request to Wave 2 through change control and make the trade-off visible to sponsors.
• Team Coordination and Accountability: Direct day-to-day delivery across vendor teams and internal SMEs from both companies. Maintain a clear action tracker with one accountable owner and due date for every action. Secure updates, follow up on missed commitments, identify resource and capacity gaps early, and escalate unresolved items before they become schedule slips.
• Risk, Issue, Action, Dependency, and Decision Management: Own the integrated RAID, action, dependency, assumption, and decision logs. Ensure each item has a clear owner, target date, impact, mitigation or resolution path, and escalation status. Review open items routinely, drive closure, and escalate early with a recommendation and clear decision required.
• Governance, Status, and Executive Reporting: Establish and maintain the weekly workstream status cadence and monthly executive reporting process. Produce accurate, concise, decision-oriented status materials covering milestone progress, critical-path health, accomplishments, upcoming work, risks, issues, dependencies, decisions needed, overdue actions, resource concerns, and recovery plans. Ensure materials are distributed on time and require minimal revision from leadership. Operate within IT governance and change-control standards.
• Program Documentation and Information Management: Create and maintain the core program documentation, including the integrated plan, milestone baseline, action tracker, dependency map, RAID log, decision log, change log, meeting agendas, meeting records, executive briefings, and report readiness dashboard. Convert complex discussions into clear decisions, actions, owners, and dates. Maintain a reliable single source of truth with consistent version control and easy access for stakeholders.
• First 30 Days: Baseline the integrated plan, confirm scope and milestones, establish the weekly status and action-management cadence, validate workstream ownership, create the initial RAID and dependency views, identify critical-path threats, and recommend immediate recovery actions for any areas already at risk.

Required Qualifications

• Experience: 10+ years of IT project management, including 4+ years leading data platform, BI, or analytics programs in a large global enterprise.
• M&A Delivery: Hands-on delivery experience on an M&A integration, carve-out, or separation. You understand Day 1 hard dependencies, TSA-era constraints, and how decisions actually get made when two companies share a table.
• Track Record: Demonstrated delivery of large, multi-team, multi-region technology projects to a fixed, business-committed date — with examples of how you recovered when the plan broke.
• Technical Fluency: Working command of modern data architecture — cloud lakehouse platforms (Snowflake and/or Databricks), BI tooling, data pipelines, master data management, and data governance — deep enough to challenge an engineer's estimate and be right.
• Master Data: Direct experience harmonizing master data and hierarchies (product, customer, vendor, material) across systems or companies, including the business negotiation that comes with it.
• Compliance: Working familiarity with SOX (ideally GxP) control environments and security/IAM review gates, and experience building compliance evidence into the delivery plan rather than bolting it on.
• Executive Presence: Comfortable presenting to VP and C-level sponsors, taking a hard question, and running a decision meeting with regional leads who disagree — and driving it to closure in the room.
• Program Operating Discipline: Demonstrated ability to independently run a complex program operating cadence, manage competing priorities, drive action completion across teams without direct authority, maintain highly organized records, and escalate missed commitments appropriately. Must be known for strong follow-through, attention to detail, and producing clear, executive-ready documents.
• Program Management Tools and Documentation: Expert in Microsoft Project or equivalent, Excel, PowerPoint, and common collaboration and document-management tools such as Microsoft Teams and SharePoint. Comfortable in Smartsheet or Jira. Able to build clear, professional status reports, executive scorecards, action trackers, decision logs, and program dashboards.

Preferred Skills

• Industry: CPG or manufacturing background.
• Domain Reporting: Familiarity with daily sales, market share, secondary sales, eCommerce POS, spend analytics, supply chain finance, and capital planning reporting.
• PMO Experience: Prior work inside an IMO/PMO or SPMO structure with capital governance and business-case review processes.
• ERP Exposure: SAP ECC/S/4 exposure from an analytics-consumer perspective.
• Operating Style: Thrives in ambiguity and shifting priorities in a fast-paced, global, matrixed environment. Brings structure without waiting for direction, creates practical operating rhythms, follows through persistently with stakeholders, and gives leaders early visibility into risks, missed commitments, and decisions required.

Talent Groups is an equal opportunity employer that values diversity and inclusion. All qualified applicants will receive consideration without regard to protected characteristics. The listed compensation range represents a good-faith estimate and may vary based on experience, skills, education, certifications, market conditions, client budget, and location, in accordance with applicable pay transparency laws.