Head of Program Management (f/m/d)
HybridMunich, Bavaria, Germany
Job Summary
Oversee end-to-end execution of the project portfolio from concept to series production across automotive, commercial vehicle, and industrial BESS programs. Lead teams of Project Leads, Product Owners, and Field Application Engineers while managing dependencies, mitigating risks, and optimizing resource allocation to drive throughput and profitability. Define and optimize department processes for Engineering, Operations, Sales, and Quality, serving as the primary interface for C-level management and the ultimate escalation point for critical roadblocks. Ensure commercial governance and technical maturity standards remain on track across all programs.
Required Qualifications
- 8+ years of leadership in Program or Project Management
- Experience specifically in automotive, battery, or power electronics
- Successfully led a team of teams
- University degree in Engineering, Business Administration, or a related field
- Technical understanding combined with commercial acumen
- Comfortable pushing back and mediating cross-functional goals
- Proven ability to lead multidisciplinary teams (interacting with HW, SW, Systems, Operations)
- Proven ability to manage leaders (Team Leads)
- Exceptional presentation skills
- Exceptional negotiation skills
- Ability to build trust with international Tier-1 or OEM customers
- Ability to navigate C-level stakeholders
- Experience owning execution of project portfolio from first concept to series production
- Experience leading teams of Project Leads, Product Owners, and Field Application Engineers
- Reporting directly to the Chief Customer Officer
- Experience balancing vehicle-level and grid-scale energy storage safety and performance
- Experience overseeing end-to-end execution of all projects
- Experience ensuring projects meet milestones, budget constraints, and resource allocations
- Experience identifying cross-project synergies and managing dependencies
- Experience mitigating systemic risks
- Experience leading Team Leads and senior contributors
- Experience fostering professional and technical growth
- Experience optimizing organizational structure and resource allocation
- Experience balancing capacity, driving throughput and profitability
- Experience acting as primary interface for C-level management
- Experience aligning departmental goals with overall company strategy
- Experience reporting on KPIs
- Experience defining and continuously optimizing department processes
- Experience managing interfaces with Engineering, Operations, Sales, and Quality
- Experience serving as ultimate internal escalation point for critical project roadblocks
- Experience making firm decisions on critical project roadblocks
- Experience ensuring commercial governance (contracts, deliveries) stays on track
- Experience ensuring technical maturity (e.g. V-cycle, ASPICE) stays on track
Desired Qualifications
- Experience in automotive, battery, or power electronics (softened by context of 'specifically' but often treated as preferred in broader contexts, however strict reading keeps it required; re-evaluating based on 'specifically' in text: 'specifically in automotive...' makes it required. Let's look for soft cues. None found in the 'WHO YOU ARE' section. The 'ABOUT THE ROLE' mentions 'Automotive, Commercial Vehicle, and Industrial BESS' as scope, implying requirement. The 'Experience' bullet say...
- Experience leading a team of teams (softened? No, 'successfully led' implies requirement)
- Experience with HW, SW, Systems, Operations (implied in multidisciplinary teams)
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