Interim Program Manager

The Contract Program Manager will own the planning, governance, and execution oversight of the stabilization program across commercial, operations, and technology teams. Reporting to the General Manager for Large Chain with a dotted line into the Director of Change and Transformation, you will operate at the intersection of these functions, bringing structure, accountability, and pace to a program that requires strong leadership and cross-functional fluency. This is not a coordination role. You will be expected to drive decisions, manage senior stakeholders, surface risks early, and hold teams to their commitments. You will be measured on whether the program delivers tangible, sustained improvement, not on process compliance or volume of reporting.

Location: Remote, US based

Hourly Rate: $55-$65 DOE

Versique offers comprehensive benefits, including medical, dental, vision, accident/critical illness insurance, MN ESST, MN PFML, and a 401(k) with a company match.

Role & Responsibilities

Define and maintain the program plan encompassing commercial, operations, and technology workstreams, including milestones, phasing, critical path, and cross-functional interdependencies.

• Decompose the program into workstreams with clear ownership, scope boundaries, and measurable exit criteria focused on outcomes.
• Establish the program cadence: steering committees, workstream reviews, cross-functional dependency sessions, and retrospectives at appropriate frequencies.
• Build and maintain a program-level RAID log (Risks, Assumptions, Issues, Dependencies) with rigorous follow-through and named owners.
  
  

Governance and Decision-Making

• Implement the governance framework: decision rights, escalation paths, change control processes, and exit criteria for phase transitions.
• Chair steering group sessions with senior leadership across all functions, providing clear, balanced reporting on program health and progress.
• Own the change control process for scope, timeline, and resource adjustments, ensuring every material change is documented with impact analysis.
• Establish clear RACI matrices across all workstreams, ensuring accountability remains sharp at functional boundaries.
  
  

Cross-Functional Delivery Management

• Coordinate delivery across commercial, operations, and technology teams to ensure aligned execution, including aligning release schedules with customer-facing commitments and operational readiness.
• Identify, track, and actively manage cross-functional dependencies. Run regular dependency mapping sessions that bring all domains together to surface conflicts before they become blockers.
• Understand the constraints and priorities of each function and translate between commercial, operational, and technical language fluently.
• Integrate with existing delivery practices (Agile, Kanban, or operational cadences) without imposing unnecessary overhead. Adapt governance to each team's context.
  
  

Risk and Issue Management

• Proactively identify risks across all domains, quantify their impact and likelihood, and drive mitigation plans with named owners and deadlines.
• Escalate blockers with clarity, providing decision-makers with options, trade-offs, and recommended actions rather than just surfacing problems.
• Track leading indicators of program health across technology, operations, and commercial performance.
• Conduct pre-mortems on high-risk milestones and cross-functional handoff points.
  
  

Stakeholder and Communication Management

• Develop and execute a stakeholder engagement plan that maps influence, interest, and communication needs across commercial, operations, and technology leadership.
• Produce executive-level program dashboards that surface the key signals: RAG status with narrative, trend data, decision points, and areas requiring leadership attention.
• Manage upwards with confidence, ensuring senior leadership across all functions has a clear and accurate picture of program status.
• Navigate competing functional priorities and build consensus across teams with different working cultures and incentive structures.
  
  

Define measurable success criteria spanning technology health, operational performance, and commercial impact. Ensure the program delivers tangible value incrementally, not just at closure.

• Track and report benefits in business language that connects program activity to outcomes the leadership team cares about.
• Establish baseline metrics at program inception to enable clear before-and-after measurement.
  
  

Continuous Improvement and Transition

• Embed feedback loops: retrospectives, lessons learned, and process adjustments at regular intervals across all workstreams.
• Plan for program closure and transition from day one. Ensure improvements are sustainable and ownership transfers cleanly to BAU teams.
• Document the operating model, playbooks, and governance artifacts so the organization retains the capability after the contract ends.
• Build internal capability by coaching and upskilling permanent staff in program disciplines during the engagement.
  
  

Required Skills & Experience

• Minimum 8 years of programs management experience, with at least 3 years leading large-scale, cross-functional programs within SaaS or technology-led product organizations.
• Demonstrable experience leading programs that span beyond technology into operations and/or commercial functions.
• Strong understanding of SaaS business models, delivery practices (CI/CD, Agile, release management), and how platform performance connects to customer retention and operational efficiency.
• Proven ability to manage cross-functional dependencies across 5 concurrent teams with competing priorities and different working cultures.
• Strong command of program-level RAID management, critical path analysis, dependency mapping, and benefits tracking.
• Experience designing governance frameworks that create accountability without bureaucracy, adapted to the maturity of each function.
• Track record of operating effectively at senior leadership level across multiple business functions, with the ability to drive alignment between leaders who do not naturally collaborate.
• Excellent written and verbal communication with the ability to translate between technical, operational, and commercial contexts fluently.
  
  

Desirable Experience

• Experience with DORA metrics and their application to engineering and delivery health.
• Familiarity with incident management frameworks and reliability engineering principles.
• Understanding of customer success, onboarding, and support operations in a SaaS context.
• Program management certifications such as MSP, PgMP, or equivalent.
• Experience in regulated or compliance-heavy SaaS environments (e.g., fintech, healthtech, hospitality technology).
• Experience leading organizational change or operating model design alongside program delivery.
• Knowledge of the hospitality, workforce management, or large chain operations sector.
  
  

About Versique

Versique: /ver-seek/?adj. being both versatile and unique; n. a high-performance recruiting firm specializing in executive leadership search, direct hire, and interim hiring solutions.?

Versique Executive, Professional, & Interim Recruiting is a locally owned and operated hiring and placement firm based in the Twin Cities of Minnesota. With specialized practice areas across our three divisions, Versique delivers tailored expertise to a wide range of industries. What sets us apart is our team of recruiters—seasoned professionals who have worked in the very fields they now hire for, providing unmatched industry insight and connections.

We believe people are more than resumes—they are transformative, unlocking the potential for organizational growth and success.

Versique is proud to be an award-winning company, earning recognition on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies and the Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal's Fast 50 list for 2023. We are also consistently recognized as a Star Tribune Top Workplace and were named a Best Place to Work in 2022 by the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal.

Let's find your people, together.