If you are a seasoned project manager with a flare for building relationships and executing strategies with fidelity, read on. You may have just found your next move. American Student Assistance (ASA.org), a non-profit organization changing the way kids learn about careers and plan for their futures, has an immediate opening on our growing planning and communications team. The Project Manager will report directly to the Associate Director of the PMO and be responsible for translating strategies into comprehensive project plans for key department and cross-divisional initiatives, for executing plans with fidelity, and for reporting project status to senior leaders.
What's ASA all about?
American Student Assistance (ASA) is a pioneer of student-led career learning helping millions of middle and high schoolers plan their futures - on their terms. Our mission is to radically transform the way careers are planned and pursued, and we're doing this by creating digital tools that empower students to explore education and careers that align with their goals.
Since our founding in 1956, ASA has been at the forefront of educational innovation for middle and high school students nationwide. Our work has consistently adapted to meet their needs in a changing education landscape, and today, we're focused on developing resources and opportunities that support students during the transition from high school into their careers.
ASA is a hybrid workplace with 2 required in office workdays per week on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
Essential Functions:

• Manage a well-defined project management process for a variety of projects including key department projects, cross-divisional initiatives, product development and product management initiatives, mergers/acquisitions/work transitions, organizational change projects, system remediations, and process improvement projects.
• Prioritize project requests and ensure scope is clearly articulated and articulates impact on resources, infrastructure, and processes and outlines dependencies, risks, timelines, budget, etc.
• Maintain a central repository for all project information for documentation including Playbooks, project briefs, charters, SOWs, project plans, research briefs, stakeholder communications, executive reporting. etc.
• Establish and execute communication and change management plans to ensure employee adoption and project success. Consult with internal and external partners, manage expectations through internal and stakeholder communications.
• Execute standardize and centralize reporting for all projects. Track progress to plan ensuring deliverables are on time, within budget, and of the superior quality. Manage budgets, scope changes as well as escalate and resolve issues. Maintain weekly reporting on each project (milestones completed, priorities for upcoming week, alerts, project status, timelines, issue resolution, etc.)
• Seek process improvement. Find synergies and process improvement points. Identify system enhancements needed to support projects including developing scope, system and business requirements, vendor negotiation, UAT, training and deployment.
• Craft AAR (after action review) reports debriefings for analyzing what happened, why it happened, and how it can be done better by the participants and those responsible for the project or event.

A successful candidate will:

• Possess a strong background in strategic planning, project scheduling, risk management, change control and process improvement with a proven ability to translate strategies into comprehensive project plans, build consensus, and execute plans with fidelity.
• Demonstrate a strong skill set in project management, logistics planning, communication, issue management, conflict resolution, change management, resource capacity planning, and relationship management.
• Thrive on standardization - methods, lifecycles, governance, regulatory - and embrace a true collaborative, service-oriented and supportive mindset. Also be flexible enough to change lanes when needed.

Experience:

• 5 years of related project management experience (experience in the K12 Education and the Edtech sector a plus) with proven propensity as an initiative-taker and problem-solver.

Skills:

• Excellent verbal and written communication skills: Superior communication skills are mandatory. Must be able to communicate both verbally and in writing with all levels of management including senior leaders. Outstanding presentation and negotiation skills: superior success influencing up, down and across an organization; influencing without authority.
• Superior writing skills; including synthesizing multiple business priorities into coherent, relevant, and impactful communications/presentations. Must be able to distill large amounts of information into easily digestible pieces for consumption and have a keen ability to adapt messages for audience relevance.
• Excellent organizational ability: Must be detail-oriented, process-driven, able to prioritize own work, set and meet deadlines, and manage multiple projects simultaneously. Must have the ability to manage a high volume of work in a short period of time and be able to organize and assimilate information across multiple business units in a succinct manner. Ability to effectively prioritize and execute tasks in a high-pressure environment is crucial.
• Outstanding record of managing large scale projects as evidenced by working with large cross-functional groups/managing multiple vendors and completing projects on time/on budget. Must be able to create and present project briefs, proposals & playbooks and develop detailed project plans for execution.
• Strong people skills: Ability to quickly establish a good rapport with all contacts. Ability to motivate others to accomplish objectives and build consensus. Must be able to work with all levels of the organization as well as with content contributors and organizational partners. Must be able to converse with all levels of the business fluently and confidently. Having great facilitation skills and experience leading teams is a must.