Manager Program Manager Jobs in Ottawa, ON (NOW HIRING)

Do you want to be part of a mission driven organization shaping Canada's innovation future? Do you thrive in collaborative environments where creativity, continuous improvement, and strategic thinking are valued? Are you motivated by work that strengthens Canada's competitiveness and delivers meaningful impact for communities and businesses?

At Mitacs, we take a talent first approach to building Canada's innovation capacity. We connect researchers with organizations across every region of the country to help solve pressing challenges and accelerate economic growth. By enabling business academic collaboration and supporting the development of highly skilled talent, we contribute to a resilient, future ready Canadian economy.

Guided by our values -Impact, Integrity, Collaboration, Excellence, and Talent - we work with partners nationwide to advance research, commercialization, and innovation.

Position Summary:

As Mitacs undergoes a multi-year enterprise transformation, we are building the capabilities, systems, and culture to deliver greater impact at scale. We are seeking a highly experienced Program Manager (1-year contract) to lead the orchestration and delivery of programs under the Transformation Management Office (TMO) Portfolio, including, but not limited to, Mitacs' Enterprise Transformation (MET).

Reporting to the Director, Enterprise Transformation, this role is accountable for ensuring alignment, integration, and delivery across multiple corporate initiatives. The Program Manager serves as the central coordination point across programs, enabling effective prioritization, managing cross-program dependencies, reporting on the integrated project plan, and ensuring leadership has clear visibility into progress, risks, issues, and required decisions.

This is a hands-on leadership role supporting leadership and driving execution. The successful candidate will bring strong judgment, the ability to navigate ambiguity, and a track record of driving trade-offs and outcomes in complex, multistream environments.

Key Responsibilities:

Program Leadership and Execution:

• Provide leadership and governance across the TMO portfolio, ensuring enterprise transformation initiatives are aligned with organizational priorities
• Lead the end-to-end delivery of Enterprise Transformation programs, including planning, execution, risks and issues management, dependency management, budget management, stakeholder engagement, and delivery of key program outcomes.
• Work closely with sponsors, workstream leads, and cross-functional teams to integrate multiple workstreams, ensuring a coordinated integrated roadmap to achieving program milestones and successful adoption and outcomes.
• Manage vendor coordination and governance, including day-to-day management of consulting partner relationships.
• Prepare materials for the Executive Steering Committee (ESC) on program delivery.
• Ensure that project and program-level risks, issues, dependencies, and opportunities are identified, assessed, and mitigated throughout the program lifecycle.
• Provide regular updates in both written reports and verbally to senior leadership, workstream leads, and stakeholders on program progress, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), and risks.

Governance, and Program Oversight:

• Own the development and maintenance of the enterprise transformation roadmap aligned to strategic priorities.
• Track and report on KPIs to ensure that program goals are met.
• Ensure adherence to program governance frameworks, ensuring consistency and efficiency across the transformation Portfolio.

Stakeholder Engagement, Risk Management and Delivery Alignment:

• Serve as the central point of contact for program communication, ensuring transparent, clear, and timely updates across all levels of the organization.
• Build and maintain effective working relationships with business units, sponsors, and workstream leads to ensure alignment on program goals, priorities, and outcomes.
• Work closely with the Change Management Advisor to integrate change and communication strategies into the integrated program roadmap, ensuring effective messaging that supports organizational buy-in and successful change adoption.
• Facilitate cross-functional meetings to maintain alignment on project deliverables and ensure stakeholder alignment on critical priorities. throughout the program lifecycle.
• Contribute to iterative planning and execution using Agile delivery frameworks (Scrum and SAFe), ensuring dependencies, priorities, and risks are actively managed.
• Support consistent application of Agile practices across programs to enable predictable delivery and effective value realization.

Team Leadership and Development and Continuous Improvement:

• Lead, coach, and develop a small project management & delivery team.
• Set clear objectives, performance expectations, and development plans for direct reports.
• Monitor workload distribution and raise resource risks proactively.
• Foster a culture of excellence, collaboration, continuous improvement, and innovation.
• Partner with the Change Management Advisor and Organizational Change Management working group to drive adoption of new processes, tools, and ways of working.
• Leverage AI tools and automation to drive personal and team productivity across program delivery, reporting, planning, and communication.

Qualifications and Experience:

• 8+ years of experience in program management within complex, multi-stakeholder environments. Demonstrated experience coordinating multiple concurrent initiatives or portfolios.

• Minimum 5 years of experience directly managing Project Managers or similar roles.
  
• Program Management (PgM) or Project Management Professional (PMP) certification or equivalent.
• Certified Scrum Master (CSM), SAFe, Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP).
• Expertise in project management tools such as Smartsheet, MS Planner, Jira, or other industry-leading platforms.
• Experience managing portfolio budgets in excess of $10M.
• Experience in managing strategic risks, program and project governance.

• Proven ability to lead and coordinate small, cross-functional teams and collaborate across multiple business units and workstreams to achieve transformation goals.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to engage and manage relationships with stakeholders at all levels of the organization.
• Excellent communication, negotiation, and stakeholder management abilities, including experience presenting to executive steering committee (ESC).
• Active user of AI tools for productivity (e.g., Copilot, ChatGPT, Claude, or similar) with a mindset of continuous improvement and innovation.
• Experience managing external consulting partners (e.g., Big 4).

Preferred:

• Professional certification in Change Management (e.g., Prosci ADKAR).
• Proficiency and/or certification in Benefits Realization Management.
• Experience in managing large-scale transformation programs within the technology sector or not-for-profit sector.
• Expertise in Lean Six Sigma or other process improvement methodologies.
• Experience stepping into a function during a period of organizational transition or leadership change.
• Familiarity with Power Platform tools (Power BI, Power Automate, Power Apps).

What Success Looks Like

In the first 90 days, the successful candidate will have:

• Taken ownership of transformation program delivery and established relationships with sponsors, external vendors, and key stakeholders
• Onboarded their team and set clear expectations for performance and collaboration
• Delivered at least one reporting cycle independently. Managed the integrated workstream visual, revised governance, revised roadmap, and product board

Equity, diversity, and inclusion and reconciliation are strong commitments at Mitacs:Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion - Mitacs. We believe a diverse workforcecomprisedof individuals with different lived experiences, ideas, strengths, and backgrounds (e.g., gender identities and expressions, Indigeneity, race, abilities, sexual orientation, and other identities) are crucial to our success. We welcome everyone to apply and encourage you to connect with us if yourequireaccommodations during the recruitment process.

Hiring Range: $103,105 - $115,235

Hiring and Salary Range Transparency

Typically, employees are hired, transferred, or promoted within the salary range, specifically between the minimum and midpoint in the hiring range.

The salary range refers to the range of base salaries for a given position, encompassing the minimum andmaximumamounts. The midpoint of the range is positionedapproximately halfwaybetween the minimum and maximum,indicatinga fully qualified employee with comprehensive job knowledge and experience for the role.

Only in rare and exceptional circumstances, where a candidate has the experience, skills, andexpertisethat far exceed thoserequired for the position, would we consider paying above the hiring range for this role.

Our recruitment process may use artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled tools to support activities. Any use of AI is subject to human review and all hiring decisions are made by a human member of our hiring team.

---

Vous souhaitez faire partie d'une organisation propulsee par sa mission qui faconne le futur de l'innovation au Canada? Vous aimez evoluer dans des milieux collaboratifs ou la creativite, l'amelioration continue et la pensee strategique sont valorisees? Etesvous une personne motivee par des responsabilites qui contribuent a accroitre la competitivite du Canada et a produire des resultats concrets pour les communautes et les entreprises?

Pour developper la capacite d'innovation du Canada, a Mitacs, nous misons sur le talent. Nous etablissons des liens entre les chercheurs et chercheuses et les organisations dans toutes les regions du pays pour aider a resoudre des defis pressants et accelerer la croissance economique. En facilitant la collaboration entre le secteur prive et le milieu postsecondaire et en appuyant le perfectionnement de talents hautement qualifies, nous contribuons a une economique canadienne resiliente et capable de relever les defis de demain.

Guidees par nos valeurs,impact, integrite, collaboration, excellence et talent, nous collaborons avec des partenaires de partout au pays pour faire avancer la recherche, la commercialisation et l'innovation.

Description du poste:

Nous sommes a la recherche d'un ou d'une gestionnaire de programme pour diriger la planification et la mise en uvre de programmes du Bureau de gestion de la transformation, y compris, sans s'y limiter, la transformation organisationnelle de Mitacs (MET).

Relevant de la direction, Transformation organisationnelle, la personne titulaire de ce poste (contrat d'un an) doit veiller a l'alignement, a l'integration et a la mise en uvre de plusieurs initiatives organisationnelles. Le ou la gestionnaire de programme fait office de point de coordination central entre les differents programmes; il ou elle permet ainsi de definir efficacement les priorites, de gerer les interdependances entre les programmes, de rendre compte du plan de projet integre et de veiller a ce que la direction dispose d'une vision claire de l'avancement des travaux, des risques, des problemes et des decisions a prendre.

Il s'agit d'un role de leadership proactif qui appuie la direction et pilote la mise en uvre. La personne retenue aura un jugement sur, la capacite de gerer des situations delicates, de trouver des compromis et d'obtenir des resultats dans des environnements complexes a multiples volets.

Principales responsabilites :

Leadership et mise en uvre du programme :

• Diriger et gerer le portefeuille du BGT pour veiller a ce que les initiatives de transformation organisationnelle soient alignees sur les priorites de l'organisation.
• Diriger de bout en bout la mise en uvre des programmes de transformation organisationnelle : planification, mise en uvre, gestion des risques et des problemes, gestion des interdependances, gestion du budget, mobilisation des parties prenantes et atteinte des objectifs cles du programme.
• Travailler en etroite collaboration avec les personnes qui parrainent la transformation, les responsables de groupes de travail et les equipes interfonctionnelles afin d'integrer plusieurs groupes de travail et de creer une feuille de route coordonnee pour atteindre les objectifs du programme et assurer une adoption reussie.

• Gerer la coordination et la gouvernance des fournisseurs, y compris la gestion quotidienne des relations avec les partenaires de consultation.
• Preparer la documentation pour le comite directeur de gestion sur la mise en uvre du programme.
• Veiller a ce que les risques, les problemes, les interdependances et les occasions en lien avec le projet et le programme soient identifies, evalues et attenues tout au long du cycle de vie du programme.

• Fournir des mises a jour regulieres, par ecrit et verbalement, a la haute direction, aux responsables de groupes de travail et aux parties prenantes sur l'avancement du programme, les indicateurs de rendement cles et les risques.

Gouvernance et supervision du programme :

• Assurer l'elaboration et la mise a jour de la feuille de route de la transformation organisationnelle selon les priorites strategiques.
• Effectuer le suivi des indicateurs de rendement cles et en rendre compte afin d'assurer l'atteinte des objectifs du programme.
• Veiller au respect des cadres de gouvernance des programmes, afin d'assurer la coherence et l'efficacite de l'ensemble du portefeuille de la transformation.

Engagement des parties prenantes, gestion des risques et harmonisation de la mise en uvre :

• Servir de point de contact central pour la communication du programme et fournir des mises a jour transparentes, claires et opportunes a tous les niveaux de l'organisation.
• Etablir et maintenir des relations professionnelles optimales avec les unites operationnelles, les personnes qui parrainent...