Manager / Associate Director, Strategic Process Improvement & Programs

Manager / Associate Director, Strategic Process Improvement & Programs Syneos Health® is a leading fully-integrated life sciences services organization built to accelerate customer success. We partner with innovators at every point across the drug development and commercialization continuum, helping them navigate complexity, anticipate change and accelerate progress. Every day we perform better because of how we work together, as one team, each the best at what we do. We bring together talented experts across a broad spectrum of business critical corporate functions. Every role plays an essential part in enabling our customers to achieve their goals. Our teams are agile, collaborative, and committed to delivering—for each other, for our customers, and ultimately for the people who rely on the services we support. Discover what your 25,000 future colleagues already know: Why Syneos Health • We are passionate about developing our people, through career development and progression; supportive and engaged line management; technical and therapeutic area training; peer recognition and total rewards program. • We are committed to building an inclusive culture – where you can authentically be yourself. Central to this is our purpose – Driven to Deliver – which captures the passion of our colleagues to show up each day and shape solutions that have the ability to dramatically impact someone’s life. • We are continuously building the company we all want to work for and our customers want to work with. Why? Because we know that when we bring together smart colleagues from across the world, we can shape the future of healthcare, driving impact for customers and defining the pace of patient progress. Job Responsibilities CORE RESPONSIBILITIES Analyses current-state processes to identify gaps, risks, inefficiencies, and root causes, using input from business stakeholders and available data. Develops future-state workflows, operating model changes, and role clarity needed to standardize, simplify, and improve work. Develops and maintains standardized process improvement frameworks, tools, templates, and best practices to support a repeatable transformation approach across the organization. Develops and maintains integrated program and project plans defining scope, deliverables, milestones, resources, dependencies, budgets, and success measures. Establishes and operates fit-for-purpose program governance, including decision forums, status reporting, escalation paths, and clear roles and accountabilities. Coordinates cross-functional workstreams and proactively manages risks, issues, actions, decisions, interdependencies, changes, and resource constraints to keep delivery on track. Provides concise, accurate program reporting for sponsors and governance bodies, highlighting progress, outcomes, financial or capacity impacts, emerging risks, decisions required, and recommended corrective actions. Facilitates program and workstream meetings, documents decisions and commitments, and follows through with accountable owners to ensure timely completion of actions and deliverables. Acts as a business partner with key business leaders to align on and prioritize transformation opportunities Collaborates with delivery teams and business stakeholders on the design and implementation of desired solutions, including communication, training, business process documentation, and change adoption support. Reviews, challenges, and strengthens business cases for transformation opportunities by validating assumptions, assessing feasibility, identifying dependencies, and ensuring benefits are measurable, realistic, and tied to business outcomes. Establishes and maintains performance measures and benefits-tracking mechanisms, including KPIs and reporting, to monitor process performance, adoption, value realization, and sustainability of improvements. Partners with technology, operations, and business stakeholders to assess where AI, automation, and workflow enablement can accelerate standardized processes and improve scalability. Champions continuous improvement and serves as an active change agent to support understanding and adoption of change within the organization. May provide direct or indirect coaching and mentoring to staff and project contributors, depending on role level and organization needs. QUALIFICATION REQUIREMENTS B.A. / B.S. in business, operations, life sciences, information technology, engineering, or related field, or equivalent combination of education, training, and experience required. Experience leading complex, cross-functional programs or projects involving business process improvement, enterprise transformation, operating model change, or strategic delivery in a corporate environment preferred. Lean Six Sigma certification or practical experience applying process improvement methods preferred. Demonstrated program management experience, including planning, governance, status reporting, stakeholder management, risk and issue management, change control, and benefits realization; formal certification such as PMP, PRINCE2, or equivalent is preferred. Experience using program and project management tools to maintain plans, RAID logs, decision records, dashboards, and executive-level reporting. Ability to understand cross-functional business needs and the role of enabling technologies in process improvement preferred. Familiarity with AI, automation, and workflow enablement concepts preferred. CORE SKILLS Strong tactical and strategic thinking skills, with the ability to apply critical thinking to short- and long-term planning in support of business objectives. Strong program management discipline, with the ability to translate strategic objectives into executable plans, establish governance, sequence work, and drive delivery across multiple interdependent workstreams. Ability to identify, assess, and communicate program risks, issues, dependencies, and trade-offs, and to escalate decisions with clear options and recommendations. Strong facilitation, stakeholder engagement, and executive communication skills, with the ability to build alignment, manage expectations, and maintain accountability across functions and levels. Highly effective written and verbal communication, presentation, analytical, organizational, and interpersonal skills. Above average attention to detail and accuracy, with the ability to work independently and manage multiple priorities in a dynamic environment. Ability to analyze complex situations, recognize key variables, and draw appropriate conclusions to identify trends, opportunities, and recommended solutions. Experience building professional working relationships, negotiating, and influencing a broad range of stakeholders across functions and levels. Experience engaging diverse interests toward a common goal and working collaboratively to accomplish desired outcomes. Get to know Syneos Health Over the past 5 years, we have worked with 94% of all Novel FDA Approved Drugs, 95% of EMA Authorized Products and over 200 Studies across 73,000 Sites and 675,000&#43; Trial patients. No matter what your role is, you’ll take the initiative and challenge the status quo with us in a highly competitive and ever-changing environment. Learn more about Syneos Health. <