NEOM U
NEOM U will be a world class education, research, and innovation hub, that inspires and empowers the best minds: technology to better the world, innovation through the "lab of the future” and life-long personalized development. It will be focused on the fusion of the liberal arts with digital thinking, computing and technology to solve humanity’s most pressing problems. Faculty and students at NEOM U, through immersive, synergistic relationships and partnerships with the NEOM community, its sectors, and The Line, will serve as the creators and stewards of the “living laboratory” NEOM aspires to be, to imagine, inspire and enable the ground breaking discoveries and breakthrough innovations the world needs to advance and to thrive. Their innovative approaches in technology-enabled, personalized experiential learning across disciplines, and their bold research pursuits to conquer pressing societal challenges and to define new scientific frontiers, will be supported by exceptional facilities and laboratories which, augmented through immersive partnerships with the NEOM sectors, their industrial partners, and the Line, will enable and foster an unmatched ecosystem for purposeful collaboration, life-long learning and creative exploration at the service of society. As such, the NEOM U boundaries will extend beyond its physical facilities, to encompass NEOM and The Line, and to establish NEOM U as an institution for disruptive education and purposeful innovation’ for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the world.
Role Purpose
The Program Manager must lead a critical portfolio of projects within the Education, Research and Innovation sector including; building the required team to support, develop effective customer relationships across the University, analyze and recommend resolutions for highly complex issues where the analysis of situations or data requires an in-depth evaluation of multiple factors and the balancing of competing business needs. Exercises judgment in selecting methods, techniques, and evaluation criteria for obtaining results. The Program Manager supports and facilitates the digital strategy to enhance the experience of our students, faculty, staff, and other stakeholders.
The Program Manager supports NEOM U’s transformation from inception, embrace digital technology, and embed digital thinking at the core of our business. The Program Manager is responsible for a portfolio of projects of broad and diverse scope, size, impact and budget using advanced technical project management.
Key Accountabilities & Activities
The Program Manager priorities during the startup phase are:
- Assemble and lead large project teams composed of diverse departmental or cross-functional staff responsible for the development and delivery of new products and services. Using leadership skills, effectively and equitably resolves conflicts among diverse project stakeholders and team members to deliver project deliverables and benefits to the organization
- Upskilling and hiring: Attracting the talent needed to deliver on the digital and technological aspirations of NEOM U
- Contribute to the development of a multi-year roadmap and financial plan to sequence efforts to implement the university technology in alignment with needs, available resources, and capacity for change.
- Work closely with Senior Staff and other relevant stakeholders within and across NEOM to establish and maintain an institutional planning and governance framework for information technology, including the appropriate decision making and communication structures to execute effective technology deployment and timely project delivery.
- The incumbent will leverage relationship building, problem solving, budget management, and creativity to create a vision of information technology for the campus and to implement that vision in a high-quality and sustainable manner.
- The Program Manager must be committed to the career and professional development of the staff, fostering practices for managing individual and team performance. The incumbent should be a flexible leader capable of motivating through team leadership skills, a clear vision, exceptional interpersonal and communication abilities, and a talent for leading and managing change.
Background, Skills & Qualifications
Knowledge, Skills and Experience
The Program Manager:
- A minimum of 8 years’ experience in using Project Management principles and agile practices in a complex environment at a senior level, with supervisory responsibility.
- Experience with enterprise resource planning systems (eg SAP), Business Intelligence, and other similar products.
- Highly effective communicator at all levels within a complex and culturally diverse organization, including top level senior management, Board members and external stakeholders and constituencies
- Proven project management expertise including change management in complex environments and implementing continuous quality improvement.
- Strong analytical skills and ability to use data to guide decision-making; ability to direct and resolve ambiguous problems.
- Demonstrated ability to collaborate with diverse user groups, including faculty and administrative staff, students, external resources and professional peers and success in maintaining high levels of user satisfaction in the provision of technology and related digital and support services.
COMMUNICATION - MAIN STAKEHOLDERS
Internal
External
- ERI Sector and other NEOM sectors
- Interaction with academic research communities, formal and informal educational organizations, industry, government entities, cybersecurity authorities and multiple technology companies