Director, Program Management — Data & AI

Key Responsibilities

• Own the end-to-end program management framework for the Data & AI organization, ensuring all workstreams are tracked, risks are surfaced early, and commitments are met.
• Establish and enforce Jira standards, workflows, and reporting practices across AI Engineering, Data Engineering, UX Design, Product Management, and Data Governance teams.
• Define and implement agile delivery practices—including sprint planning, retrospectives, and backlog hygiene—tailored to the needs of each function within the Data & AI org.
• Build and maintain a unified program dashboard that provides real-time visibility into portfolio health, milestone status, resource allocation, and blockers for senior leadership.
• Drive accountability across a team of ~100 professionals, ensuring commitments are documented, tracked, and honored—escalating when they are not.

OKR & KPI Management

• Partner with the Senior Director, Product Management and Data & AI leadership to define, cascade, and track organizational OKRs and KPIs each quarter.
• Establish a cadence of structured reviews—weekly stand-ups, monthly business reviews, and quarterly OKR check-ins—that keep the organization focused and aligned.
• Proactively identify when teams are off-track and facilitate swift corrective action, surfacing issues with data and proposing solutions, not just problems.
• Produce clear, concise reporting to senior leadership and firm stakeholders on program status, risks, and organizational health.

Team Leadership & Development

• Lead, mentor, and grow a team of Program Managers (currently two), with the latitude to expand the team as organizational complexity demands.
• Set clear performance expectations, provide consistent coaching and feedback, and foster a culture of precision, accountability, and continuous improvement.
• Serve as a model for rigorous program management discipline, establishing standards that elevate the entire organization's operational maturity.
• Partner closely with functional leads—Engineering, Design, Product, and Governance—to embed program management practices within each discipline.

Cross-Functional Coordination & Stakeholder Management

• Serve as the connective tissue across the Data & AI organization, breaking down silos and ensuring cross-functional dependencies are actively managed and resolved.
• Serve as the conduit to the IT organization to build out any joint product work plans, timelines, and milestones which the Data & AI organization is dependent on for major product initiatives.
• Facilitate alignment between program delivery and strategic priorities, translating organizational goals into actionable execution plans.
• Act as a trusted advisor to the Senior Director, Product Management and Data & AI leadership on matters of execution, capacity, and operational risk.
• Build credibility across the firm—with attorneys, practice group leaders, and business stakeholders—through reliable delivery and transparent communication.

Process Improvement & Tooling

• Continuously evaluate and improve program management processes, tools, and rituals to reduce friction and increase throughput across the organization.
• Drive adoption of Jira, Aha!, Confluence and other collaboration tools as the sources of truth for work planning, tracking, and reporting.
• Identify systemic inefficiencies and implement scalable solutions that allow the Data & AI organization to move faster with greater predictability.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Business, Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field.
• Minimum of 10 years of program or project management experience, including at least 5 years in a senior or leadership capacity at a high-performing organization.
• Demonstrated experience managing large, cross-functional programs (100+ person organizations or equivalent scope) with measurable accountability outcomes.
• Deep proficiency with Jira, Confluence, and roadmapping tools—including workflow configuration, reporting, and driving org-wide adoption of standards.
• Proven expertise implementing and scaling agile delivery practices across multi-disciplinary technology teams.
• Track record of building and maintaining OKR/KPI frameworks and driving organizational accountability to them.
• Experience directly managing and developing program management professionals.
• Exceptional organizational skills and an almost obsessive attention to detail—you catch what others miss and you don't let things slip.
• Strong executive presence with the communication and influencing skills to engage senior leadership and firm stakeholders with confidence and clarity.
• Comfortable making the difficult call: holding teams accountable, escalating blockers, and driving decisions when momentum stalls.
• Demonstrated ability to operate effectively in a matrixed, fast-paced environment with competing priorities and evolving requirements.

Preferred Qualifications

• Master's degree in Business Administration, Engineering, or a related field.
• PMP, PgMP, SAFe, or equivalent program management certification.
• Experience in a law firm, professional services, or similarly complex enterprise environment.
• Familiarity with AI, data engineering, or data governance domains and the unique delivery challenges they present.
• Experience managing geographically dispersed teams across multiple time zones.