Director, Program Management

Director, Program Management (Design)

This role will be located by our office in NYC, working closely with our design studio, Aruliden. 

About us

We drive intelligent growth for ambitious businesses and leading brands. 

Customer understanding is more potent and drives greater value when insights go to work directly within marketing and experience priorities. To give our clients that advantage, we put an insights-driven operating system at the core of our design, go-to-market and digital experience solutions.  

Material clients make smarter growth choices because they can see clearly how and when to take the shots that count. Together, we connect consumer intelligence with customer demand generation to build lasting, profitable relationships.

About the Director, Program Management Role:

Material is seeking a Director of Program Management to join our best-in-class Delivery team. In this pivotal role, you will be the orchestrator of both internal teams and external client relationships—ensuring program excellence across strategy, brand design, web experience, and technology build workstreams. You will thoughtfully and strategically balance the needs of client, the team and the business, ensuring expectations are clearly defined, continuously managed, and consistently met or exceeded.

You will bring strong operational rigor, organizational excellence, and relationship-building expertise to shape and manage large, complex, multi-disciplinary programs—including brand design, strategy, product design, and development.

Program Managers are at the heart of every project we take on and create the context for great work to happen. The ideal candidate has experience working with global teams, thrives in fast-moving environments, and is a detail-oriented, proactive, solutions-focused leader. Experience in relevant client industries is preferred but not required.

Responsibilities include:

Program & Project Leadership

• Drive programs throughout the entire lifecycle—from scoping and planning to kickoff through launch and ongoing optimization.

• Interpret client briefs to establish clear project requirements, KPIs, roles and responsibilities, priorities, and deadlines.

• Develop and manage detailed project plans, including milestones, integrated workstreams, deliverables and staffing requirements.

• Establish project budgets, staffing models, and resourcing plans in partnership with cross-functional leaders.

• Prepare internal briefs and lead project and phase kickoffs to onboard teams effectively.

• Oversee day-to-day program management for multiple concurrent workstreams (brand, web design, UX, product design, development), tracking with each to ensure the holistic program is achieving its goals.

• Set and manage communications and expectations across client, design, creative, strategy, research, data, and technology teams.

• Celebrate and share team successes and milestones.

Execution & Delivery Excellence

• Track program progress, provide regular status reports, and summarize next steps for internal teams and clients.

• Ensure the creative and technical teams stay aligned, using exceptional communication and clear process documentation.

• Lead complex, multi-team engagements and ensure all work is delivered on time, on budget, and at the highest level of quality.

• Identify risks early and develop mitigation strategies; escalate issues appropriately and with clarity.

• Manage scope, schedule, and budget adjustments with confidence and transparency.

• Maintain accurate, up-to-date information in Material’s systems to support financial tracking and operational efficiency.

• Communicate new project requests, timeline changes, and financial impacts to senior cross-functional leaders.

• Monitor and manage multiple project workflows, anticipating and removing blockers.

Client Management

• Serve as a senior day-to-day point of contact for clients, building trust through transparency, delivery excellence, and thoughtful problem-solving.

• Understand nuances of client communication and effectively manage difficult conversations when needed.

• Solicit and act on client feedback to improve partnership and project outcomes.

Resourcing

• Identify project teams based on scopes of work in collaboration with Service Line leads and Resourcing Manager.

• Proactively raise resourcing challenges or timeline risks to ensure successful delivery.

• Demonstrate strong strategic, analytical, and problem-solving abilities.

• Inspire confidence and positivity across interdepartmental and global delivery teams.

• Bring a proactive, pragmatic, and solution-oriented mindset, even in high-pressure situations.

• Exhibit excellent written and verbal communication skills with exceptional attention to detail.

• Adapt communication style by audience (client, creative, technical) and speak with authority on all project phases.

• Confidently lead conversations requiring clarity, alignment, or conflict resolution.

• Demonstrate accountability, curiosity, and eagerness to learn.

• Bring a positive, collaborative presence and a can-do attitude.

• Drive work forward with a predisposition to action and momentum.

• Exhibit passion for creativity, technology, and high-impact digital experiences.

• 8–10 years of experience managing brand, website/app design and development, product launches, digital strategy, or media programs.

• Experience coordinating across cross-functional teams including brand, product design, UX, SEO, content, technology, QA, and globally distributed delivery teams.

• Proven success leading large, complex initiatives with multiple interdisciplinary workstreams across different locations.

• Experience writing proposals, estimating level of effort, contributing to scopes of work, and responding to RFPs.

• Strong familiarity with modern project management tools, creative workflows, and digital development processes.

• Comfort driving multiple swimlanes of strategy, design and delivery at the same time.

Pay Range: $110,000.00-135,000.00

The range shown represents a grouping of relevant ranges currently in use at Material. Actual range for this position may differ, depending on location and specific skillset required for the work itself.

Equal Employment Opportunity

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, protected veteran status, disability, or any other factors prohibited by law.

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