Program Manager - 12 month Contract

The Program Manager role is responsible for the end-to-end leadership of large and complex customer transition and transformation programs comprising multiple related projects, workstreams, technologies, suppliers and delivery partners. The role provides overall accountability for program planning, governance, financial and commercial performance, cross-project dependencies, risk management and customer outcomes, ensuring individual projects and workstreams remain aligned to the objectives and commitments of the broader program.

The Program Manager establishes the overall delivery framework for assigned programs and provides delivery direction across Project Managers, Senior Project Managers and workstream leads. The role maintains an integrated view of program scope, schedule, financials, resources, risks, dependencies and customer commitments, providing clear visibility of overall program performance and ensuring issues are managed at the appropriate level.

Acting as the senior delivery interface for the customer, the Program Manager builds trusted relationships across senior, executive, technical and operational stakeholders, maintaining alignment between customer objectives, contractual commitments and Vocus delivery activities. The role develops a strong understanding of the customer's business and operating environment to ensure delivery priorities, decisions and governance remain aligned with customer needs throughout the program lifecycle.

The role also plays a significant part in major pre-sales, bid and tender activities, helping shape delivery strategies, governance models, implementation approaches and transition plans, and providing delivery assurance that proposed customer commitments are practical and achievable.

What You’ll Be Doing

The key responsibilities of the role are listed below.

Lead the end-to-end delivery of large and complex enterprise customer transition and transformation programs comprising multiple projects, workstreams, technologies, suppliers and delivery partners.

Establish the overall program structure, objectives, delivery approach, governance model, accountabilities and success criteria.

Develop and maintain an integrated program delivery plan and critical path encompassing project and workstream schedules, key milestones, dependencies, resource requirements and customer commitments.

Maintain senior customer engagement throughout delivery, providing clear visibility of program performance, priorities, risks, decisions and emerging concerns.

Establish and maintain a consolidated view of program risks, issues, assumptions, dependencies and delivery sequencing, identifying cross-project impacts and ensuring appropriate ownership, mitigation and escalation.

Maintain consolidated oversight of program financial and commercial performance, including budgets, forecasts, scope, change and commercial impacts.

Assess significant scope, schedule, solution or implementation changes for their impact across the broader program, including downstream projects, dependencies, resources, commercial outcomes and customer commitments.

Ensure implementation and migration activities are effectively coordinated across workstreams, including large-scale site rollouts with varied site requirements, network transformations, service migrations, customer readiness, cutover sequencing and contingency planning.

Maintain oversight of suppliers, carriers, technology partners and third-party delivery organisations, managing interdependencies, performance and delivery constraints that may affect individual sites, workstreams or overall program outcomes.

Lead significant program escalations and recovery activities, applying structured problem solving and sound judgement to restore agreed customer and delivery outcomes.

Ensure completed projects and workstreams are appropriately integrated, accepted and transitioned into operational support, and that the program is formally closed upon completion of delivery obligations.

Pre-sales, bids and tenders

Lead the development of program-level delivery approaches for major and complex opportunities, working with Sales, Solution Architecture, Commercial and delivery teams to establish implementation strategies, governance structures, workstream models, schedules and resource requirements.

Participate in strategic customer workshops to understand business objectives, operating environments, delivery constraints, organisational readiness, dependencies and acceptance expectations.

Provide delivery assurance during major opportunity development by challenging assumptions and identifying risks, dependencies, exclusions and constraints that may affect proposed schedules, resource models, implementation approaches or customer commitments.

Program Governance & Integration

Establish an integrated governance framework across the program, defining the relationship between program, project, workstream and customer governance forums.

Consolidate project and workstream reporting into a clear program-level view of delivery performance, financials, risks, issues, dependencies and decisions.

Program Delivery Coordination

Provide overall program delivery direction and coordination across Project Managers, Senior Project Managers, workstream leads and other contributors assigned to the program.

Provide guidance and support to Project Managers managing complex dependencies, escalations and customer issues within the program.

What You’ll Bring to the Role

Essential

Extensive experience leading large-scale customer transition and transformation programs involving multiple related projects, workstreams, technologies, suppliers and stakeholder groups.

Demonstrated experience managing complex multi-site delivery environments involving varied site requirements, access constraints, customer dependencies, multiple suppliers, carriers and third-party delivery partners.

Demonstrated experience establishing and managing integrated program plans, governance frameworks, cross-project risks and dependencies, and consolidated reporting.

Demonstrated ability to provide delivery direction across Project Managers, workstream leads and cross-functional teams without relying on direct reporting authority.

Strong understanding of project and program management disciplines, including scope, schedule, financial management, governance, RAID, dependency, resource and change management.

Strong customer and stakeholder-management capability, with demonstrated experience building trusted relationships with senior and executive stakeholders and developing a strong understanding of the customer's business and operating environment to inform delivery decisions.

Strong financial and commercial capability, including consolidated program forecasting, cost control, scope/change management and assessment of commercial impacts.

Experience contributing to major pre-sales, bids and tenders, including the development or assurance of delivery strategies, implementation approaches, governance models and customer commitments.

Strong facilitation and presentation capability, including experience leading customer workshops, governance forums and executive-level delivery discussions.

Strong problem-solving, critical-thinking, negotiation and escalation-management capability, with demonstrated experience resolving complex delivery challenges across multiple projects, suppliers and workstreams.

Ability to interpret contractual and commercial commitments and understand their implications for program delivery.

A recognised project or program management qualification, or equivalent demonstrated professional experience.

Desirable

Experience delivering WAN, SD-WAN, SASE, internet, fibre, voice, cloud connectivity, security or managed network transformation programs.

Experience operating across enterprise, government, infrastructure or other complex customer environments.

Experience with program assurance, governance reviews, health checks and recovery planning.

Familiarity with IT service management, operational readiness and complex service transition.

Experience working with enterprise financial, CRM, service-management and project and program reporting platforms.

Exposure to leading SD-WAN and SASE platforms such as Fortinet, Cisco Meraki or equivalent technologies.