Program Manager, Liaison

The St. Jude Liaison Office (SJLO) enables St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and ALSAC to operate as one mission-driven team by driving strategic alignment, fostering cross-institutional collaboration, and facilitating the resources, communication, and engagement necessary to advance fundraising objectives while supporting the St. Jude mission, operational priorities, and strategic plan.

In a fast-paced and highly collaborative environment, this Program Manager will work alongside two Content Program Managers to research, review, fact-check, edit, and substantiate medical, scientific research, programmatic and institutional content for a general audience.

The role also serves as a key partner to the High-Wealth Donor Program Manager, supporting the development of donor-facing proposals and materials most often by synthesizing complex scientific, clinical, programmatic, financial and operational information into clear, understandable content for lay audiences and delivering high-quality work within established timelines.

We strongly prefer a candidate who is fluent in both English and Spanish, with exceptional written and verbal communication skills in both languages, but this is not required. This Program Manager will support interviews with Spanish-speaking staff and complete content review activities, providing bilingual review, translation, and content language support as needed to ensure accuracy and consistency across English and Spanish donor materials.

The ideal candidate is an exceptional critical thinker with experience in fact checking, content-editing, desk research, and writing. Strong grammar and proofreading skills, meticulous attention to detail, the ability to manage competing priorities and deadlines, and a collaborative approach to working with others are essential for success in this role. The successful candidate should be organized, responsive, accountable, and comfortable working closely with executive leadership, faculty, and subject matter experts.

The abilities to adapt to evolving priorities, balance competing needs, exercise sound judgment, and provide thoughtful solutions that bring clarity and direction to complex, cross-functional initiatives would bring success in this role. A scientific background is helpful, but is not required.

Preferred Responsibilities (Or What You'll Be Doing Every Week):

• Research, review, fact-check, edit, and substantiate mostly clinical, scientific, programmatic, historical and institutional content to ensure accuracy and consistency.
• Serve as the bilingual Liaison Office Content Program Manager, supporting interviews and content review activities, providing bilingual review, translation, and content language support as needed to ensure accuracy and consistency across English and Spanish donor materials.
• Identify and maintain knowledge of St. Jude history, institutional priorities, key statistics, research initiatives, clinical programs, and strategic objectives.
• Serve as a content development partner to the High-Wealth Donor Program Manager, conducting research and analysis to synthesize complex scientific, clinical, financial and programmatic information into clear, donor-focused content for lay audiences, including scientific program overviews, research highlights, disease summaries, academic manuscript summaries, statistical updates, scientific analyses, and donor-interest briefs.
• Collaborate with faculty, subject matter experts, and stakeholders to gather information, validate, and contextualize scientific and clinical information, developing written summaries, recommendations, and content revisions as needed.
• Serve as a scientific advisor, providing subject matter expertise and guidance on scientific, clinical and research-related content, materials and inquiries.
• Support the delivery of scientific presentations and educational sessions on St. Jude laboratories, departments, programs, and emerging research initiatives, as needed.
• Review presentations, recorded videos, speaker materials, and related content, providing recommendations to enhance accuracy, clarity, context, and effectiveness.
• Manage and coordinate responses to capital equipment information, program financial information and institutional facts requests.
• Maintain a centralized database of current St. Jude facts, statistics, and substantiated institutional information for use in content development.
• Create and maintain standard operating procedures, guidelines, and policy documentation.
• Manage affiliate-related content reviews and submissions.
• Attend speaking engagements with St. Jude faculty and staff, serving as the St. Jude point of contact and advocate as needed, as well as prepare for any forthcoming content adjustments needed.
• Manage multiple projects simultaneously while consistently meeting competing priorities and often accelerated deadlines.
• Ensure project success by understanding and achieving established goals, objectives, timelines, and deliverables.
• Develop recommendations for process improvement, planning, scope management, and risk mitigation.
• Develop, maintain, and distribute regular reports, proactively tracking program activities, outcomes, and related data.
• Assist with high-level institutional, patient, executive, and departmental initiatives.
• Perform other duties as assigned. Responsibilities may fluctuate based on changing departmental needs.

Minimum Education

Bachelor's degree required.

Minimum Experience

4+ years of experience in program management and delivery.

Experience designing and managing programs with a focus on customer needs.

Experience in program budget tracking, reporting and risk management.

Proven experience engaging with senior leaders to facilitate decision-making.

Experience providing guidance and mentorship within a program management team.

Some experience driving continuous program improvement projects.

Experience working at St. Jude or other large, similar institution is highly preferred.

Significant experience working with office project planning tools (e.g., MS Project, Microsoft SharePoint, ServiceNow, Smartsheet, MS Office) is also preferred, not required.

Job Responsibilities:

Lead the planning and execution of a program including defining objectives, approaches, goals, governance mechanisms, resource deployment, periodic reviews, contingency planning, and periodic reporting and communication.

Collaborate with cross-functional teams internally and externally to achieve defined outcomes aligned with departmental strategies.

Drive internal stakeholder management and communications, management of external vendors, and strong partnership with stakeholders inside and outside the institution.

Track program and/or project success.

Provide oversight and management of program budgets through planning, control and tracking of expenditures.

Provide more complex analysis of data to create reports for senior leadership.

Perform other duties as assigned to meet the goals and objectives of the department and institution.

Maintains regular and predictable attendance.

Licensure, Registration and/or Certification Required by Law:

None

Licensure, Registration and/or Certification Required by SJCRH Only:

None

Special Skills, Knowledge and Abilities :

Ability to think critically, draw insights and connect the dots. Openness to change and adapting to changing times with resilience and flexibility.

Demonstrates strong knowledge/skills within area on a consistent basis to solve complex problems independently

Able to draw insights from different sets of data and quickly understand why issues are happening. Solves problems quickly by identifying the root causes. Encourages others to see the opportunities ahead amidst changing circumstances even when the details have not been finalized.

Skilled in communicating complex ideas effectively to diverse audiences and influencing others to see different points of view.

Leads team meetings on an as-needed basis and effectively communicates with cross-functional teams for results.

Understands and uses digital tools of communication as needed. Speaks up in meetings, raises concerns, and shares information with team.

Focuses on setting high targets, following through with actions, and achieving results. Ability to anticipate roadblocks and circumvent challenges.

Remains calm in challenging and uncertain times by focusing on the end goals and solving problems. Defuses any unforeseen developments and problems by leveraging data analysis and insights.

Maintains focus on goals. Drives engagement and ownership for group to deliver ambitious results and solutions.

Skilled in planning, forecasting, tracking, reconciling & budgets and spends. Ability to use related tools and systems to efficient operation.

Demonstrates a strong understanding of budget planning, forecasting processes, contracts and grants as well as their interdependencies with other organizational processes.

Manages budget and variance for own team and provides inputs for potential budget needs during planning. Analyzes budget & grant data, identifies trends, shares findings and recommends actions as needed.

Skilled in organizing, analyzing and synthesizing data. Ability to use tools and systems to drive accuracy and efficiency. Ability to think critically while drawing insights and communicating them.

Demonstrates a strong understanding of more advanced data management tools, systems and processes. Is able to carry out more complex analysis of data, working with large/ complex data sets, to create reports for senior leaders. Exhibits strong critical thinking to identify trends and draw out insights; works with a high level of independence.

Skilled in managing people, establishing goals and objectives, giving feedback and having frequent career conversations.

Learns on the job and applies skills in routine tasks and activities; delivers under supervision and guidance.

Plans workload for team and gives clear instructions and expectations on delivery. Frequently reviews work, gives positive and constructive feedback, and completes evaluations. Coaches and supports the development efforts of each team member.

Skilled in managing programs with an understanding of customer needs and overall institutional/ departmental goals. Ability to define project/ program goals, drive execution, and manage risks.

Leverages knowledge of project management tools and methodologies to manage less complex programs, end to end. Defines scope and milestones clearly with a clear understanding of customer needs and overall program goals. Identifies and regularly communicates with critical cross-functional stakeholders, managing resources & conflicts and driving accountabilities.

Skilled in sourcing, identifying and managing vendor relationships, contract negotiations and holding vendors accountable. Learning agility and strong grasp of vendor-provided systems and technologies.

Leverages advanced knowledge/ skills within area to identify and implement new/improved processes/approaches.

Evaluates and proposes suitable vendors based on understanding of vendor offerings, business needs, and internal evaluation criteria.

Negotiates and oversees vendor service levels/terms for own area in line with organizational objectives. Addresses complex vendor issues around delivery through engagement with vendor leadership.