Principal - Technical Program Management

Responsibilities

Primary Role Objective

Accountable for planning, coordinating, and driving execution of complex initiatives within technology and business units (BU) that impact enterprise outcomes. Operates independently with minimal direction; influences decisions across multiple stakeholder groups.

Portfolio and Program Management

• Owns end-to-end delivery of one or more large/complex programs (and/or a portfolio of related initiatives), ensuring outcomes are delivered on time, within budget, and aligned to enterprise strategy.

• Builds and maintains integrated program plans, dependencies, milestone tracking, RAID, and communications across multiple teams and domains.

• Partners with domain leadership to shape program scope, sequencing, and outcomes; ensures alignment to roadmaps and strategic objectives.

• Drives financial management for assigned programs/portfolio: forecasting, variance analysis, and mitigation planning in partnership with finance and domain leaders.

• Selects and tailors delivery approaches (Waterfall, Agile, Hybrid) and applies appropriate methods/tools based on initiative needs.

• Identifies and drives opportunities to improve delivery efficiency, throughput, quality, and cost; recommends process and tooling enhancements.

• Partners with the Vendor Management Office (VMO) and Sourcing on program delivery needs, vendor coordination, and complex contracting support (as applicable).

• Plays a key role in evolving planning/execution toward Product Model and Agile ways of working, including scaled delivery coordination where relevant.

Problem Solving and Decision Making

• Solves complex, ambiguous delivery challenges involving multiple stakeholders with differing priorities; surfaces tradeoffs and recommends path forward.

• Proactively identifies program risks, issues, and constraints; drives mitigation plans and decisioning aligned to enterprise priorities.

• Applies effective change, risk, and dependency management; validates that actions resolve root causes and prevent recurrence.

• Uses data to inform decisions, quantify impacts, and drive stakeholder alignment to include consistent, streamlined and executive level reporting.

Stakeholder Collaboration and Communication

• Communicates complex program information clearly to executives, business partners, and technical teams using the right level of detail for the audience. Influences strategic and cross-domain decisions through strong executive presence, storytelling, and structured communications.

• Builds alignment and consensus across functions; drives commitments and holds stakeholders accountable through governance and transparency. Translates customer expectations into actionable delivery plans; ensures outcomes remain customer-centric and measurable.

• Partners with IT PMO / Governance to apply and improve enterprise-level project/program standards, metrics, and best practices.

• Synthesizes large volumes of information into clear recommendations, options, risks, and decisions needed.

• Prioritizes and drives to technical solutions with key SMEs and concurrently translate complex technical challenges to all levels of leadership clearly with mitigation recommendations clearly identified.

• Uses sound judgment to understand when to escalate early and often with plausible pathways to get to green in hand.

• Demonstrates ability to protect and preserve highly sensitive information while keeping projects / program deliverables on track.

• Exercises strong governance to enable decision-making and keeps executive sponsors well-informed.

Leadership and Organizational Change

• Drives adoption of improved tools, processes, and governance practices across delivery teams.

• Models flexibility and resilience in changing environments; enables teams to navigate change through clear priorities and expectations.

• Contributes to capability building by mentoring peers, sharing best practices, and coaching teams on delivery excellence (without direct people management).

• Ensures quality and integrity of program work products through disciplined standards and continuous improvement.

Strategic Impact and Business Alignment

• Understands how program decisions impact business metrics, customer experience, and enterprise strategy (enterprise mindset, cross-dependency identification)

• Ensures program plans and execution remain aligned to enterprise priorities; highlights conflicts, constraints, and tradeoffs early.

• Manages interdependencies across portfolios/domains to achieve integrated, customer-centric outcomes.

Job Qualifications/Requirements

• Education: Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Business Administration, or other related field or equivalent work experience. Master’s Degree preferred. Project Management certification or successful completion of a recognized project management curriculum is required. Agile certifications are largely preferred.
• Experience:
• 10+ years of IT experience, including significant experience leading complex programs/projects across multiple teams and stakeholders.
• Demonstrated success leading cross-domain initiatives in a global, matrixed organization; proven ability to influence without authority.
• Experience deploying Agile at scale and operating in mixed methodology (Waterfall/Agile/Hybrid) environments.
• Expertise using portfolio/program tooling (e.g., Smartsheet, ServiceNow SPM); strong interest and experience leveraging AI to improve delivery effectiveness.
• Strong executive communication and prioritization skills; ability to drive outcomes amid ambiguity and change.
• Domain experience in MA&D, Infrastructure, and/or Cybersecurity preferred.

Skills Required

• Result Driven Facilitation
• Communication & Stakeholder Mgmt
• Continuous Improvement
• Metrics & Reporting
• Documentation
• Technical Acumen
• Risk Management and Issue Resolution
• Delivery Lifecycle
• Agile Methodologies
• Domain Knowledge
• Strategic Focus
• Organizational Change Management
• Dependency Mgmt
• Program Strategy & Execution
• Budget & Resource Facilitation
• Governance & Compliance
• Initiative Scope Mgmt
• Vendor Coordination
• Change Request/Management
• Presentation Skills
• Financial & Data Management Competency
• Customer Centricity
• Lean Portfolio Management

What Cencora offers

We provide compensation, benefits, and resources that enable a highly inclusive culture and support our team members’ ability to live with purpose every day. In addition to traditional offerings like medical, dental, and vision care, we also provide a comprehensive suite of benefits that focus on the physical, emotional, financial, and social aspects of wellness. This encompasses support for working families, which may include backup dependent care, adoption assistance, infertility coverage, family building support, behavioral health solutions, paid parental leave, and paid caregiver leave. To encourage your personal growth, we also offer a variety of training programs, professional development resources, and opportunities to participate in mentorship programs, employee resource groups, volunteer activities, and much more. For details, visit https://www.virtualfairhub.com/cencora

Equal Employment Opportunity

Cencora is committed to providing equal employment opportunity without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, national origin, age, disability, veteran status or membership in any other class protected by federal, state or local law.

The company’s continued success depends on the full and effective utilization of qualified individuals. Therefore, harassment is prohibited and all matters related to recruiting, training, compensation, benefits, promotions and transfers comply with equal opportunity principles and are non-discriminatory.

Cencora is committed to providing reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities during the employment process which are consistent with legal requirements. If you wish to request an accommodation while seeking employment, please call 888.692.2272 or email hrsc@cencora.com. We will make accommodation determinations on a request-by-request basis. Messages and emails regarding anything other than accommodations requests will not be returned

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