Supply Chain Program Manager

Day to day, you're running programs that span multiple functions — procurement, IT, operations, finance — often with people who don't report to you and who have competing priorities. Much of the work is coordination: standing up program governance, tracking workstreams, running steering committee updates, and managing the plan when things slip.

The rhythm tends to be dictated by program phase. In early design, you're aligning stakeholders and defining scope. During execution, you're tracking dependencies and surfacing blockers. In close-out, you're managing stabilization and handoff. M&A integrations and major system implementations often have compressed timelines and high executive visibility, which adds its own kind of pressure.

The hard part is getting busy operations teams to engage with program work that competes with their day jobs. Supply chain teams are often under operational pressure; getting a facility manager to prioritize your system cutover prep while they're also hitting their weekly shipment numbers requires more influence than authority.