Senior Project Manager II, Client Onboarding & Implementation

Senior Project Manager II, Client Onboarding & Implementation-Full Time (Remote)

Role Overview

The Enterprise Project Management Office is seeking a Sr. Project Manager to join our Client Onboarding Team. Onboarding plays a critical role in helping public media organizations achieve their mission. As the bridge between a station's decision to partner with CDP and their long-term success, the onboarding team helps clients adopt the tools, processes, and capabilities they need to strengthen fundraising, deepen audience engagement, and support the communities they serve. Every successful implementation enables our clients to focus more time and resources on delivering trusted journalism, educational content, and public service. In this role, you'll guide client stations through one of the biggest organizational changes they'll make: onboarding to CDP's Member Services Bureau (MSB).

This role is ideal for someone who enjoys solving complex problems, building strong client partnerships, and navigating ambiguity. Every implementation is unique, requiring a balance of strategic thinking, adaptability, and hands-on execution. Beyond leading successful implementations, you'll identify patterns across engagements, using those insights to help shape onboarding strategy, drive improvements, and translate lessons learned into better frameworks, decisions, and outcomes for every client that follows.

If you're energized by challenges, comfortable working through unknowns, passionate about continuous improvement, and motivated by helping clients achieve meaningful outcomes, you'll find this work deeply rewarding.

Key Responsibilities

Project Leadership

1. Lead end-to-end project management for multiple complex client implementations, from onboarding through go-live and post-launch support, serving as the primary point of contact throughout each engagement.
2. Coordinate work across internal teams and external partners to deliver a smooth transition for the station, driving delivery outcomes across scope, timeline, quality, and client experience.
3. Own the integrated project plan across all implementation workstreams (data conversion, marketing, operations, support, etc.), managing the critical path, handoffs, and interdependencies between workstreams, and adjusting the plan when changes in one area affect the rest.
4. Facilitate client-facing status meetings, internal check-ins, and milestone reviews to ensure alignment and progress.
5. Provide regular executive updates to keep leadership informed on progress, key milestones, blockers, and overall status.
6. Anticipate and resolve risks, issues, and cross-functional blockers before they impact project timelines.
7. Partner with subject-matter experts when technical, data, marketing, finance, or operational expertise is required, while retaining overall project ownership.

Stakeholder & Client Leadership

1. Build and maintain trusted relationships with client executives throughout the implementation lifecycle.
2. Lead complex client conversations and executive-level escalations, mitigating risks, and driving resolution while maintaining stakeholder confidence.
3. Guide clients through the adoption of new tools, platforms, workflows, and business processes by connecting implementation activities to operational outcomes and long-term business objectives.

Risk, Issue & Decision Leadership

1. Proactively identify red flags, assumptions, constraints, dependencies, and readiness gaps before they affect client outcomes.
2. Lead issue resolution across internal teams, station stakeholders, and external partners; remove blockers and drive decisions to closure.
3. Maintain current risk, issue, decision, and dependency records with clear impact, severity, ownership, mitigation, target dates, and escalation paths.
4. Escalate thoughtfully with a concise problem statement, business and client impact, actions already taken, viable options, and a recommendation.
5. Use trends and lessons learned across implementations to strengthen mitigation strategies and prevent repeat issues.
6. Provide proactive insights and recommendations that influence onboarding strategy and client outcomes.

Problem Discovery & Product-Oriented Thinking

1. Frame problems clearly, assess impact, engage the appropriate partners, and bring options and a recommended path forward.
2. Support journey mapping, current-state and future-state process mapping, and solution-shaping sessions when appropriate.
3. Distinguish project-specific issues from systemic patterns that may require broader product, operational, or organizational solutions.

Key Skills & Attributes
• 10+ years of experience in Project Management, Client Onboarding, or SaaS/CRM implementations.
• Strong communication and relationship skills, including influencing and presenting to executive leadership.
• Exceptional problem-solving skills, intellectual curiosity, and a proven ability to quickly learn, adapt, and succeed in unfamiliar territory.
• Experience managing several concurrent projects and balancing priorities across a portfolio.
• A track record of leading complex, multi-workstream implementations and cross-functional strategic initiatives.
• Expertise with project management and collaboration tools (e.g., Smartsheet, Asana, Microsoft Teams).
• Committed to continuous improvement and operational excellence.
• Adept at navigating diverse project environments, dynamically applying Waterfall, Agile, or hybrid delivery models to optimize project outcomes.
• Familiarity with Lean and similar continuous improvement methodologies is a plus

Educational Requirements
• Bachelor's Degree or equivalent work experience preferred.

Commitment to Inclusion

We strongly encourage individuals from historically marginalized and underrepresented groups to apply, even if you don't meet every qualification. We value diverse perspectives, lived experiences, and commitment to public service. All CDP people have unique talents and experiences that create our company culture where we can all thrive and bring our whole selves to work each day.

Successful candidates will identify easily with a set of character attributes, as listed below:
• Inclusive mindset: You embrace and demonstrate an inclusion mindset and role model these behaviors for the organization.
• A Communicator: You possess strong communication skills and have great customer service skills; you like people and want to help.
• A Critical Thinker: You regularly look for ways to find efficiencies, innovate, and make improvements where you can.
• Process Oriented: You're able to understand, work in, create, and improve processes.
• A Collaborator: You're a team player willing to help where needed; a relationship builder whose can-do attitude inspires others; you actively share your job knowledge with team members.
• Someone Who Seeks to Learn: You are eager to listen, study, and learn new things quickly; you are resourceful and are open to regularly accepting and growing from feedback.
• Enterprising: You have proven success working in a fast-paced and changing environment; you have a strong work ethic and are excited to add value to the organization and its mission.