Program Manager, Project Phoenix

Mspark is a pioneering data & marketing technology company that bridges the gap between targeted marketing and real-world impact. We specialize in creating seamless, omni-channel experiences for consumers. Our platform integrates cutting-edge digital advertising across display, video, CTV, Meta, Google and DOOH with sophisticated, data-driven direct mail campaigns. We help the world’s top brands create a cohesive customer journey that drives measurable results online and offline.

About the Role

Project Phoenix is Mspark's new business operating system — a company-wide transformation spanning how we go to market, how we run our technology and systems, and how we operate day to day. This role sits at the center of that effort. The Program Manager is the connective tissue across Phoenix's three workstreams — Running the Business, Strategy and Planning, and Execution and Operations — ensuring the overall program moves forward as one coordinated effort rather than three parallel tracks.

Within Strategy and Planning specifically, Phoenix is anchored by three foundational initiatives we refer to internally as the Nirvana stages — the future-state systems that, once in place, give Mspark the operating foundation the rest of Phoenix builds on: the Rippling/Concur replacement, the Sage/Maestro replacement, and the Dynamics replacement. This role operates at both levels of the program: partnering with the three workstream owners at the strategic level and partnering directly with the owners of each Nirvana stage to keep those foundational initiatives on track and well-sequenced relative to one another.

This is a newly created position reporting directly to the CEO for the duration of Project Phoenix. It is designed for someone who can operate with real ownership at the intersection of planning, people, and communication. Depending on how the role and the company evolve, it may expand into a Chief of Staff position beyond the life of Phoenix — this is a role with significant room to grow alongside the company's needs.

What You'll Do

• Own overall program planning for Project Phoenix — building and maintaining the master timeline, milestones, and dependencies across all three workstreams and the three Nirvana stages within Strategy and Planning.

• Partner directly with each workstream owner (Running the Business, Strategy and Planning, and Execution and Operations) to track progress, surface risks early, and keep decisions moving at the pace the business needs.

• Partner directly with the owners of each Nirvana stage — Rippling/Concur replacement, Sage/Maestro replacement, and Dynamics replacement — to track progress at the initiative level and ensure these foundational efforts stay coordinated with each other and with the broader Strategy and Planning workstream.

• Identify where workstreams or Nirvana stages intersect or depend on one another and proactively resolve conflicts before they become execution problems.

• Establish and run a consistent operating cadence for Phoenix — status reporting, leadership check-ins, and decision logs — so the CEO and workstream owners always have a current, accurate picture of where things stand.

• Own company-wide communications about Phoenix, ensuring updates are clear, consistent, and delivered on a predictable rhythm across all levels of the organization.

• Act as a trusted extension of the CEO on Phoenix — representing the CEO's priorities in working sessions they can't attend personally and flagging issues that need the CEO's direct attention.

• Help translate high-level strategic direction into concrete plans, owners, and deadlines.

Qualification-What We're Looking For

• Proven experience leading complex, cross-functional programs or projects, ideally through a period of significant organizational change.

• Ability to connect authentically with people at every level of the organization — from the executive team to frontline staff — building the trust needed to get a straight answer from anyone.

• Clear, direct communication, especially when challenges or issues arise. This person surfaces problems early and plainly rather than softening or delaying bad news.

• No areas treated as off-limits or deflected elsewhere — this person engages directly with any part of the organization or any issue the program touches, rather than routing around difficulty.

• Ability to hold the big picture of the overall transformation in view at all times, connecting individual workstream and Nirvana-stage decisions back to what Phoenix is ultimately trying to achieve.

• Comfort operating close to executive leadership — someone who can synthesize ambiguous, fast-moving information into clear plans and clear communication.

• Strong project management fundamentals: planning, sequencing, risk management, and status reporting, without being rigidly wedded to a single methodology.

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills; able to write for a whole-company audience as easily as for a small leadership room.

• Discretion and judgment — this role will regularly have visibility into sensitive, not-yet-public information.

• A bias toward action and follow-through; comfortable holding senior stakeholders accountable to commitments.
• Experience with technology, systems implementations, or business transformation programs is a strong plus, though this role is about program leadership, not technical execution.

Why This Role Matters

Phoenix touches nearly every part of Mspark, and its success depends on more than good individual decisions in Sales, Technology Strategy, or Execution — it depends on those efforts staying connected, sequenced correctly, and communicated clearly to the entire company. This role exists to make sure that happens.

Growth Path

This role is scoped around Project Phoenix in the near term. As Phoenix matures and the company's needs evolve, there is a clear path for this position to expand into a broader Chief of Staff role supporting the CEO across the business.

Originally posted on Himalayas