Senior Specialist, Strategy & Functional Excellence

This role supports strategic project planning and is a trusted partner across GPAE, collaborating with HR Centers of Excellence (COEs), HR Business Partners (HRBPs), and internal stakeholders to ensure successful execution of high-impact initiatives. The Senior Specialist plays a critical role in developing project plans, facilitating governance, preparing executive materials, and driving cross-functional collaboration.

The ideal candidate has strong I/O psychology expertise and is highly organized, consultative, and comfortable managing multiple priorities while influencing stakeholders in a complex, matrixed environment.

Key Responsibilities

Strategy Execution & Portfolio Management

• Support development and execution of the GPAE strategic roadmap and annual priorities.
• Coordinate enterprise strategic initiatives across the GPAE portfolio.
• Develop project plans, implementation roadmaps, milestones, and success measures.
• Track progress, identify risks, and proactively escalate issues.
• Coordinate governance activities and ensure timely execution of strategic commitments.

Strategic Projects

Support planning and execution of enterprise initiatives, including:

• Culture Journey and Employee Experience
• Global Job Architecture
• Global Assessment Strategy
• Workforce Planning
• Organizational effectiveness initiatives
• Executive-sponsored strategic projects

Responsibilities include:

• Leveraging best practices, knowledge, and research, as needed, to inform project recommendations and solution design.
• Coordinating cross-functional workstreams.
• Facilitating project meetings.
• Maintaining action plans/timelines and monitoring process.
• Supporting implementation planning.
• Preparing status updates and executive summaries.

Analytics Excellence

Support continuous improvement across GPAE by:

• Leveraging people data, organizational insights, and stakeholder feedback to inform project recommendations and solution design.
• Partner with technical analytics teams to interpret findings and incorporate data into project planning and decision-making.
• Evaluate needs and initiative effectiveness by collecting and synthesizing quantitative and qualitative feedback.
• Supporting implementation of consistent methodologies across GPAE.

Stakeholder Partnership & Communications

• Partner with HR Business Partners, COEs, and GPAE leaders to coordinate strategic initiatives.
• Leverage I/O expertise and knowledge of best practices to provide thoughtful consultation and responsive support to internal stakeholders throughout project execution.
• Help translate GPAE products, services, and capabilities into clear communications and stakeholder resources, including workshops, executive presentations, briefing materials, communications, and project updates.
• Support change management and stakeholder engagement activities for strategic initiatives.
• Build collaborative relationships across HR and the broader organization.

Leadership & Team Contribution

• Serve as a trusted thought partner to the Manager, Strategy & Functional Excellence.
• Lead assigned initiatives with a high degree of independence.
• Influence project teams and stakeholders without direct authority.
• Foster collaboration, accountability, and continuous improvement.
• Share best practices and contribute to building strategic capability across GPAE.

Qualifications

Required

• Master's degree (M.A. or M.S.) in Industrial-Organizational Psychology and 3+ years of experience (or Ph.D. and 1+ year) in Organizational Effectiveness, People Analytics, Employee Experience and Culture, Talent Strategy, HR Consulting, Program Management, or related strategic HR disciplines.
• Experience supporting cross-functional initiatives.
• Strong understanding of organizational psychology and evidence-based people practices.
• Experience developing and facilitating presentations, strategic communications, and related deliverables.
• Strong consulting, problem-solving, and project execution skills, including organization, attention to detail, and managing multiple priorities.
• High level of initiative, judgment, and accountability.

Preferred

• Experience supporting large-scale, complex initiatives in the people/HR space, including project management and/or change management.
• Experience with workforce planning, organizational effectiveness, job architecture, assessment strategy, or employee listening.
• Skill in designing and facilitating workshops, focus groups, or training sessions.
• Experience with or exposure to job-design in the context of technology advancement (e.g., automation, generative AI, agents).
• Technical data collection, analytics, visualization, or automation skills (e.g., Qualtrics, R, Python, Power BI, Tableau, Power Automate).
• Experience working with sr. stakeholders within a large, complex, or global organization.

Success Measures

Success in this role will be demonstrated through:

• Effective coordination and execution of GPAE strategic initiatives.
• High-quality project planning, governance, and executive deliverables.
• Strong partnerships with HR Business Partners, COEs, and GPAE teams.
• Timely delivery of strategic projects and milestones.
• Improved collaboration, communication, and operational effectiveness across GPAE.
• Positive stakeholder feedback regarding project support and execution.
• Consistent delivery of high-quality work with minimal oversight.