Strategic Programs Manager - 141677

Join the Residential, Retail and Supply Chain Services (RRSS) team at UC San Diego, a dynamic and innovative campus department dedicated to delivering exceptional service to the university community. As a valued RRSS team member, you will be contributing to a broad and complex organization consisting of five key units: Housing, Dining and Hospitality (HDH), Integrated Procure-to-Pay Solutions (IPPS), the UC San Diego Bookstore, Triton Print & Digital Media, and the Early Childhood Education Center (ECEC). With a focus on innovation and customer satisfaction, RRSS aims to inclusively meet the diverse needs of the UC San Diego community while fostering a sense of belonging for our students and staff.

As a member of the HDH team, you will be part of a self-funded unit with over 900 staff employees, 1,000 student employees, and an annual operating budget of $250 million, providing housing and dining services to over 20,000 students, faculty, staff, and their families. At UC San Diego, we believe a job is more than just employment - it's a chance to be part of something meaningful. Along with competitive pay, we offer outstanding benefits, retirement plans, and a supportive environment that encourages both professional development and personal growth. Benefits begin on your first day

The Strategic Programs Manager for Residential, Retail, and Supply Chain Services (RRSS) is a leadership position responsible for developing and executing strategies aimed at business transformation through data driven process improvement. This role leads the Program Management Office (PMO) for Strategic Insights and responsibilities include driving revenue growth and operational efficiency improvements across major business lines through independent analysis of complex operations, higher education trends, and market dynamics.

This position works with the RRSS Executive Leadership Team to prioritize initiatives that support departmental goals, and partners with division directors to analyze operations and set strategies to meet unit goals. The incumbent is responsible for conducting industry research, advanced analysis, and data mining to identify opportunities for operational and entrepreneurial activities, and employs machine learning and AI tools to perform complex data, financial, and trend analysis supporting financial goals and operational objectives.

The Strategic Programs Manager leads cross-functional project teams tying together technology, operations, and business development initiatives for maximum impact. The position serves as the primary point of accountability for project lifecycle management from initiation through delivery, liaising with partners in ITS for technology support and VCFA's Data Insights & Analytics team for data support as necessary. This includes establishing and maintaining structured mechanisms for tracking and reporting project status, milestones, risks, and measurable impact and benefit to leadership and stakeholders at both the departmental and institutional level. This position promotes a process improvement methodology across the department, helping to build a coalition people using the Lean Six Sigma methodology to improve processes across the organization.

Additionally, this position lays the foundation for the department's operational usage of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and automation by developing tools, trainings, and resources for department-wide implementation. The incumbent embraces AI and automation to create process efficiencies and increase value-add services to clients, focusing on operationalizing AI into enterprise-level solutions and creating the structures necessary for ensuring organizational stability. The role designs, governs, and operationalizes AI and automation frameworks to augment data-driven decision-making, ensuring data is accurately defined, stored, and accessed as the foundation for advanced machine-learning models.

This position provides mentorship to team mates and others in the department including coaching, and guidance to support individual growth and project success. In partnership with department leadership, this role actively participates in prioritizing work initiatives to ensure alignment with both short- and long-term organizational goals.

• Highly skilled in all levels of project management. Demonstrated ability to lead cross-functional teams, manage full project lifecycles, and develop structured reporting frameworks for communicating project status and impact to diverse stakeholder audiences.

• Expert knowledge of the organization's processes, protocols and procedures and external regulatory requirements in policy domain. Ability to multi-task with demanding timeframes.

• Ability to focus on priorities, strategies, and vision. Ability to assess organizational need, refocus quickly from one activity or role to another, manage multiple projects and change priorities quickly as circumstances dictate.

• Ability to coach, facilitate, and influence people. Ability to work collaboratively with a range of professional associates across multiple departments, including cross-functional teams with members from both business and technical units. Proven interpersonal skills with peers throughout the organization; strong service orientation and critical thinking skills; and attention to detail.

• Experience with process optimization and Lean Six Sigma with demonstrated ability to apply business requirement concepts into the development of tools and applications.

• Experience with financial analysis, and management and analysis of operational drivers. Ability to independently gather required information to organize and perform process analysis assignments.

• Expert knowledge of applicable policy analysis techniques.

• Expert knowledge of common organizational- or research-specific and other computer application programs.

• Highly skilled communication and interpersonal skills to communicate with and influence others, both verbally and in writing.

• Ability to use discretion and maintain all confidentiality.

• Expert analytical / problem-solving skills. Ability to think independently to design and develop solutions and procedures.

• Demonstrates ability to learn quickly, reason, synthesize and generalize based on information obtained. Strong analytical and research skills with attention to detail and the ability to summarize findings into concise and relevant documents and presentations.

• Job offer is contingent upon satisfactory clearance based on Background Check results.

Mandated Reporter: This position has been identified as a Mandated Reporter pursuant to the California Child Abuse and Neglect Reporting Act and requires immediate reporting of physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, or neglect of anyone under the age of 18. It is the responsibility of the Mandated Reporter to ensure that they obtain proper training in order to fulfill their reporting responsibilities as required by the California Child Abuse and Neglect Reporting Act and University policy, and to complete and submit the required reports to the UC San Diego Police Department without delay.