Senior Manager - Program Management

At American Express, our culture is built on a 175-year history of innovation, shared values and Leadership Behaviors, and an unwavering commitment to back our customers, communities, and colleagues. From delivering differentiated products to providing world-class customer service, we operate with a strong risk mindset, ensuring we continue to uphold our brand promise of trust, security, and service.

As part of Team Amex, you'll experience this powerful backing with comprehensive support for your holistic well-being and many opportunities to learn new skills, develop as a leader, and grow your career. Here, your voice and ideas matter, your work makes an impact, and together, you will help us define the future of American Express.

Global Infrastructure (GI) powers the reliable, secure, and scalable technology foundation that enables American Express to operate globally, connecting platforms, services, and capabilities that support business growth and resiliency.

Cross Platform Delivery (CPD) is a cross GI integration and orchestration layer that brings consistency to planning and delivery rhythms, improves transparency across work in flight, and enables leaders to make aligned, timely decisions across towers and enabling functions.

Role Overview

The Technical Program Manager role owns GI Operational Tooling Evolution, setting the target state, securing senior alignment, and leading enterprise scale change to modernize the tools, data, and operating flows that underpin GI execution. You will drive adoption from pilot to scale, establish clear standards and governance, and deliver measurable improvements in decision velocity, data integrity, and operational rigor across GI.

• Drive systemic improvements to GI operational execution by shaping end-to-end operating flows (intake, prioritization, governance, reporting) that reduce friction and manual coordination at scale.

• Rationalize and evolve GI operational tooling to reduce fragmentation, improve data integrity, and establish trusted systems of record for portfolio and operational signals.

• Improve decision velocity and operational outcomes by enabling consistent, executive ready insights (dashboards/scorecards) tied to clear definitions, governance inputs, and performance metrics.

• Lead adoption and behavior change from pilot to scale—setting expectations, enabling teams with training and comms, and measuring adoption and compliance to sustain GI wide ways of working.

• Own complex, cross GI programs that evolve operational tooling and ways of working—defining scope, target state, governance, milestones, and success metrics.

• Establish and maintain integrated roadmaps, dependency maps, and decision cadences across product towers and enabling functions; surface risks, drive tradeoffs, and secure timely executive decisions.

• Design target state operating models for GI execution (e.g., intake, triage, approvals, reporting) and partner with product/engineering owners to embed scalable, auditable flows in supported platforms.

• Define and govern standard operational signals and definitions (status hygiene, milestones, KPIs/OKRs, governance inputs) to enable consistent reporting and decision support across GI.

• Set the GI operational tooling evolution roadmap (systems of record, dashboards, scorecards) by translating cross GI needs into sequenced, measurable releases and clear adoption requirements.

• Provide executive visibility through concise, outcome based readouts on roadmap progress, adoption, risks, and decisions needed; facilitate forums that drive alignment and accountability.

• Own the change strategy and adoption plan—stakeholder alignment, communications, enablement approach, and rollout sequencing—to drive sustained behavior change across GI.

• Establish GI wide governance and operating cadence (intake forums, portfolio/OKR hygiene, tooling steering routines) with clear decision rights, inputs/outputs, and continuous improvement loops.

• Define and track measurable outcomes (adoption and compliance, cycle time, reduction in manual work, data quality, stakeholder satisfaction) and drive prioritization of improvements based on performance.

• Partner with product and engineering leaders to ensure tooling and process capabilities are planned, resourced, and sequenced appropriately; pressure test feasibility, capacity, and risk.

• Align cross functional stakeholders (operations, risk, commercial, talent, finance, engineering) on requirements, tradeoffs, and adoption expectations—driving clarity and accountability without direct authority.

• Ensure operational tooling and workflows meet governance, auditability, and SDLC expectations by defining controls and partnering with control functions and platform owners as needed.

• Establish reusable documentation and enablement standards (playbooks, runbooks, FAQs, how-to guides) to support consistent execution and reduce reliance on tribal knowledge.

• Surface and resolve complex cross tower dependencies across tools, data, and process through structured governance, clear ownership, and disciplined follow through.

• Drive continuous improvement by inspecting adoption and performance, incorporating feedback, and evolving tools, standards, and operating cadences to sustain GI wide consistency.

Minimum Qualifications

• • Bachelor’s degree in a technical or quantitative discipline (or equivalent practical experience).
• • 5+ years of experience leading technical programs and driving cross functional delivery in a large, matrixed organization.
• • Demonstrated experience modernizing operational workflows (e.g., intake, approvals, reporting, governance) and improving process efficiency with measurable outcomes.
• • Strong technical fluency to partner effectively with engineering teams (APIs/integrations, data pipelines, access controls, SDLC) and translate business needs into implementable requirements.
• • Experience operating in Agile/Lean delivery models, including planning cadences, backlog management partnership, and dependency/risk management.
• • Proven ability to influence senior stakeholders without direct authority and align diverse groups on priorities, tradeoffs, and adoption expectations.
• • Handson change management experience: creating rollout plans, communications, training enablement, and mechanisms to measure adoption and behavior change.
• • Comfort operating with ambiguity—able to define problems, structure work, and deliver results with appropriate guidance.
• • Strong written and verbal communication skills, including executive-ready storytelling, concise status, and clear decisionasks.
• • Analytical approach to defining metrics, interpreting operational data, and translating insights into prioritized actions.

Preferred Qualifications

• • Project/program management certification (e.g., PMP, PgMP) and/or Agile/SAFe certification.
  • Experience with operating model design, enterprise process improvement, or service management practices.
  • Demonstrated success consolidating tools or migrating users between platforms while maintaining business continuity.
  • Nice to have familiarity with operational tooling and workflow ecosystems such as Atlassian (Jira/Confluence), ServiceNow, Apptio (TBM/cost transparency), Airtable/Smartsheet, Power BI/Tableau, and Microsoft 365 (Teams/SharePoint/Excel/PowerPoint).
  • Ability to define and instrument adoption and operational health metrics; experience building dashboards/scorecards for leadership consumption.
  • Strong facilitation skills and a track record of bringing diverse stakeholder groups to alignment with clear decisions and follow-through.
  • Experience producing reusable enablement content (playbooks, training decks, FAQs) and running learning forums (office hours, communities of practice).
  • Executive-ready communication skills with demonstrated experience influencing senior leaders and driving outcomes through ambiguity.
  • Strong change leadership mindset—able to design adoption strategies, measure behavior change, and continuously improve based on feedback and results.

Salary Range: $103,750.00 to $174,750.00 annually + bonus + benefits

The above represents the expected salary range for this job requisition. Ultimately, in determining your pay, we’ll consider your location, experience, and other job-related factors.

We back you with benefits that support your holistic well-being so you can be and deliver your best. This means caring for you and your loved ones' physical, financial, and mental health, as well as providing the flexibility you need to thrive personally and professionally:

• Competitive base salaries
• Bonus incentives
• 6% Company Match on retirement savings plan
• Free financial coaching and financial well-being support
• Comprehensive medical, dental, vision, life insurance, and disability benefits
• Flexible working model with hybrid, onsite or virtual arrangements depending on role and business need
• 20+ weeks paid parental leave for all parents, regardless of gender, offered for pregnancy, adoption or surrogacy
• Free access to global on-site wellness centers staffed with nurses and doctors (depending on location)
• Free and confidential counseling support through our Healthy Minds program
• Career development and training opportunities

For a full list of Team Amex benefits, visit our Colleague Benefits Site.

American Express is an equal opportunity employer and makes employment decisions without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran status, disability status, age, or any other status protected by law. American Express will consider for employment all qualified applicants, including those with arrest or conviction records, in accordance with the requirements of applicable state and local laws, including, but not limited to, the California Fair Chance Act, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the City of Los Angeles’ Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance. For positions covered by federal and/or state banking regulations, American Express will comply with such regulations as it relates to the consideration of applicants with criminal convictions.

We back our colleagues with the support they need to thrive, professionally and personally. That's why we have Amex Flex, our enterprise working model that provides greater flexibility to colleagues while ensuring we preserve the important aspects of our unique in-person culture. Depending on role and business needs, colleagues will either work onsite, in a hybrid model (combination of in-office and virtual days) or fully virtually.

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Employment eligibility to work with American Express in the United States is required as the company will not pursue visa sponsorship for these positions.