Associate Strategic Program Manager

About the job

The Associate Strategic Program Manager manages one of the Strategy team’s three portfolios—a group of related departments and the mission-critical annual priorities that connect their work to Clickstop’s 10-year roadmap. Rather than directly executing the work, the Strategic Program Manager holds the full picture, partnering with department leaders to ensure the highest-priority initiatives are clearly scoped, sequenced, resourced, aligned, and progressing toward measurable outcomes.

Serving as the bridge between Clickstop’s strategic vision and team-level execution, this role brings the structure, cadence, and cross-functional alignment needed to turn priorities into results. By embedding within teams and maintaining clarity around what matters, what it will take, and how progress is measured, the Strategic Program Manager enables leaders to make confident decisions, stay focused on leading their teams, and successfully deliver the initiatives that move Clickstop’s long-term strategy forward.

• "The Strategy team exists to help us keep the momentum we've built over our first 20 years while being intentional about where we're headed. That means turning big ideas into real plans and making sure the things that matter get done. You'll be surrounded by people who hold a high bar, say 'tell me more' when you bring a new idea, and trust you to run with it."
• Lauren Gilbertson, VP of Strategy

Hybrid: This role combines remote flexibility with essential onsite collaboration at our headquarters in Urbana, IA 1-2 days per week.

Strategic Program Manager Core Responsibilities

Embedded & Cross-Functional Facilitation

• Facilitate and coordinate execution inside teams without owning the subject matter or the tasks, building deep context on team constraints to remove friction and resolve process issues.

• Drive alignment across multi-departmental initiatives, managing dependencies, bottlenecks, and resource constraints early and convening stakeholders to resolve them.

Systems Thinking

• Assess the system a project operates within and distinguish issues that need an underlying process fix from those solvable within the project.

• Trace recurring friction to its root cause and recommend the structural change rather than a project-level workaround.

Change Adoption & Communication

• Own change management for strategic initiatives, preparing employees for new processes and ways of working and sustaining adoption after launch.

• Own portfolio-level updates that keep stakeholders, adjacent teams, and the company informed.

Portfolio Governance

• Serve as the intake point for the assigned portfolio, evaluating, theming, and qualifying emerging requests from its departments.

• Partner with leadership and subject-matter experts to translate strategic priorities into actionable roadmaps with clear boundaries, milestones, success metrics, and ownership.

• Lead quarterly planning and reprioritization cycles alongside leadership, ensuring resource allocation matches shifting business needs without losing sight of active commitments.

• Establish transparent tracking, status cadences, and visibility across all initiatives in the portfolio.

Capability Building & Continuous Improvement

• Lead retrospectives and post-implementation reviews to capture learnings and refine workflows.

• Coach leaders and teams on planning frameworks and deploy scalable templates and standards that raise project management capability organization-wide.

What we value in this role:

• Translating Ambiguity into Action: Exceptional ability to synthesize high-level ideas into clear, structured execution plans.

• Influence Without Authority: Builds trust quickly with leaders and teams and holds initiatives accountable without owning the work or the reporting line.

• Judgment Under Competing Priorities: Comfortable saying no, sequencing trade-offs, and communicating a prioritization decision to leaders and teams.

• Framework Fluency: Picks up planning methodologies and project management frameworks quickly and applies them pragmatically rather than rigidly.

• Experience in project and/or stakeholder management .

• Formal credentials are not required ; candidates without a CAPM or PMP will be positioned to complete the CAPM within their first year.

What does Clickstop provide?

• A purpose-driven career experience; discovering the opportunity to pursue your best self (as an employee, parent, partner, community member, etc.)

• An entrepreneurial environment where opportunities are endless for those who seek them.

• Effective and impactful cross-department collaboration opportunities with our highly dynamic Clickstop teams !

• Recognition for personal, team, and company accomplishments - Clickstop’s success is a reflection of your engagement and excellence!

• We offer great full-time benefits including a competitive compensation package and a generous amount of time off. But what truly sets us apart is how we work and the environment we work in! Benefits include :

• Health Insurance ($0 Premium option), Dental & Vision Insurance

• PTO, Paid Holidays, Wellness, Birthday and Volunteer Time Off

• Life and Disability Insurance

• 401K Match

• ESOP – After one full year of service and minimum hour requirement is met

Hybrid: This role combines remote flexibility with essential onsite collaboration at our headquarters in Urbana, IA 1-2 days per week.

Note: For hybrid/remote work, internet speeds of 20 mbps are required. To be considered for a remote role at Clickstop, residence must be in one of the following states: Iowa, Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, or Pennsylvania.
Must be authorized to work in the United States.
Employment is contingent upon the completion of a satisfactory background check.
Clickstop is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

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