Program Director

Company Background:

Genuine Parts Company (“GPC” or the “Company”), founded in 1928 and based in Atlanta, Georgia, is a leading specialty distributor engaged in the distribution of automotive and industrial replacement parts and value-added services. The Company operates a global portfolio of businesses with more than 10,000 locations across the world. GPC has approximately 50,000 global employees. The Company has operations in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Singapore, France, the U.K., Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, and China.

Position Purpose:

Seeking world-class talent to join the world’s leading distributor of automotive and industrial replacement parts and value-added services operating 5,500+ locations and servicing more than 20,000 locations in the U.S and Canada. Specifically, this role will function as the Program Director of a newly formed team of engineers to build the next generation Unified Commerce and Data Platforms for GPC.  Working with a highly talented team, you will play a key role to build and run one of the world’s largest automotive and industrial replacement parts operations.

This role provides a unique opportunity to oversee an entire Portfolio and all its associated Domains, Products and Platforms to help plan, strategize, and oversee delivery execution as a Program Director. The focus is to ensure that business & technology strategy, priorities, and objectives are understood, rationalized, and expressed in an overall integrated multi-year Portfolio roadmap to provide transparency and track overall progress, financial health, and any associated risks to successfully deliver against the plan.

Program Directors oversee all aspects of an organizational initiative, including resource management, managing financial health, cross-functional collaboration, delivery execution oversight and advertising key milestones, accomplishments and any associated risks to stakeholders and senior leadership. They focus on setting the scope of the Portfolio, rolling up individual plans, connecting the dots for any dependencies and overall prioritization, sequencing and planning, to help successfully deliver against organizational goals and objectives.

The individual will work with senior leadership to help enable cloud transformation and execution for GPC’s Unified Commerce & Data Platforms. Close collaboration and alignment with business teams, application development teams, infrastructure and security will be required.  As such, exceptional abilities in building and maintaining strong working relationships and organizational savvy will be required.  High level communication and presentation skills are required.

The candidate must exhibit a deep understanding of business transformation, and agile delivery models, demonstrated focus on customer experience, and must have a proven track record of modernizing technologies.

Responsibilities:

40% - Strategy & Planning

• Responsible for planning and creating an integrated Portfolio roadmap by collaborating across all Domain and Product teams within the Portfolio, and any associated dependencies across other Portfolios
• Leads the Portfolio planning and scope definition to clearly articulate sequencing, prioritization, and dependencies for overall delivery execution
• Collaborate across business units to understand long-term strategies and how that influences overall Portfolio planning
• Work closely with the Tech Fellow and other technology leaders to align Portfolio plan with overall Technology strategy, vision, and roadmap and any associated tech debt, system rationalization, sunset plans etc..
• Ensure work streams are fully integrated and moving towards same end goals and aligning to program charter, scope management and dependencies
• Advocate for continuous improvements and maturity around overall Portfolio planning processes, cross-functional collaboration, dependency management, prioritization, and risk mitigations to drive efficiencies around delivery execution

50% – Delivery & Execution:

• Responsible for day-to-day Portfolio Management activities and oversight around resource allocations, financial health, vendor contract management, overall delivery status, risks, mitigation, success metrics etc… across all Domains, Products and Platforms within a Portfolio
• Run and oversee meetings, including Program Increment planning, document, manage, assign ownership and track action items
• Assist in sequencing to ensure incremental building blocks are being planned and delivered to realize the target state based on the holistic Portfolio roadmap
• Track overall progress & outcomes against the integrated Portfolio roadmap, and lead management and resolution of issues, risks and impediments across the Portfolio and or Program
• Communicate key milestones, accomplishments, risks/concerns, value creation etc. to stakeholders and leadership teams across the Portfolio
• Escalate to leadership in a timely manner to address any constraints, risks, conflicts in priorities etc.
• Other duties as assigned

10% – Team & Talent:

• Supervises, coaches, mentors, grows, and advises RTE (Release Train Engineers), Program Managers, Project Managers, Scrum Masters in the Portfolio
• Manages RTE/Program Managers across all Domains, Platforms and Products within the Portfolio
• Participates in and leads learning activities within the organization to help grow and mature overall Portfolio planning and delivery execution
• Links teams across the organization who are facing similar challenges to foster collaboration
• Recruit, manage, and motivate a strong Program team to help rollout best-in-class service offerings

Nature and Scope:
This role typically reports to Vice President or Sr Director

Location:

• GPC has two work locations to choose from, Duluth or Atlanta office.
• We offer a Flexible Work Policy that permits eligible employees to work remotely

Desired Qualifications & Experiences: 

• 15 + years of experience managing IT projects, including large scale enterprise-wide initiatives and programs, 7 + years of managing and working on PPM tools
• Professionally recognized by peers and leaders in the organization for significant expertise in Portfolio, Program and Project Management
• Proven experience in delivering large scale enterprise solutions, building Portfolio and Program roadmaps aligning with business transformational initiatives, strategies and priorities
• Experience leading and providing Portfolio and Program oversight across cross-functional teams and domains
• Outstanding organizational, communication, and interpersonal skills with an attention to detail combined with the ability to see the big picture
• Proven ability to plan and execute program and projects and risk mitigation strategies and driving issues to closure
• Expert knowledge of various Software Development Lifecycles including Waterfall, Feature Driven Development, Agile, Scrum, Extreme Programming (XP) and/or Lean, and leading Agile transformations
• Experience working with third party development and infrastructure suppliers
• Experience managing overall resources, financials and vendor contracts across the Portfolio related to capital and operating expense
• Prior technical and application development experience
• Deep and broad knowledge of current and emerging execution methodologies that affect the business
• Self-managing, able to work independently with minimal supervision.
• Ability to learn quickly and adapt to a changing environment; proactive in seeking out information when necessary
• Mastery of problem-solving innovation, vision, judgement, and leadership
• Active participation in or leadership of professional groups affiliated with Program and Project Management
• Experience working with Lean, Agile principles and SCRUM and Kanban
• Experience with relative agile estimation, no-estimates forecasting and Monte Carlo
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering fields orequivalent experience

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GPC conducts its business without regard to sex, race, creed, color, religion, marital status, national origin, citizenship status, age, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, genetic information, disability, military status, status as a veteran, or any other protected characteristic. GPC's policy is to recruit, hire, train, promote, assign, transfer and terminate employees based on their own ability, achievement, experience and conduct and other legitimate business reasons.