Program Director

Location: Remote

Reports to: CEO

Travel: Up to 20% domestic and international

Job Summary

The Program Director is a senior operational leader who serves as the primary point of continuity and coordination for the Alliance’s Working Groups. Reporting to the CEO, and working in close partnership with Steering Committees and Staff Leadership, this role ensures that member-led technical, certification, and marketing activities move forward with clarity, accountability, and momentum.

Rather than directing the work of volunteer-driven bodies, the Program Director creates the conditions for them to succeed — maintaining governance integrity, removing friction, and keeping complex multi-stakeholder programs on track. This is a role for someone who leads through influence, earns trust across technical and executive audiences, and understands that in a standards organization, the member community is always at the center.

Key Responsibilities

  • Track and monitor milestones and goals set for each sub-group and activity in marketing, certification, and technical activity. Identify and confirm new or updated milestones and/or goals, adjust for any changes with constant communication and alignment with the internal team.
  • Support the Governance Advisory Committee and oversee its scope and charter including facilitating annual elections and other special projects as needed
  • Partner with the Steering Committees to oversee the activities of the Aliro, Product Security, and Zigbee Alliance teams, and ensure that the project records (meeting minutes, action items, documents, meeting schedules, agendas, attendance, voting rights and elections) are compliant with the applicable Alliance Governance documents (Certification Policy, IPR Policy, Organizational Processes and Procedures) as well as the approved Charters.
  • Participate as a trusted operational partner in Steering Committee meetings, ensuring that decisions, dependencies, and commitments are surfaced, captured, and communicated to relevant stakeholders.
  • Partner with Working Groups to develop and maintain a shared metrics framework for evaluating progress across technical, certification and marketing activities.
  • Oversee management and maintenance of the Alliance’s tools that support technology development, launch, quality and security (GitHub, Atlassian, Slack). Manage outsourced projects to develop and/or enhance new tools. Establish and ensure best practices are followed in the use and management of these tools. Evaluate and recommend improvements to support tools.
  • Coordinate and manage the budget in partnership with the Steering Committee, Heads of Operations, Marketing, and Certification, based on established project schedules and related resource requirements.
  • Serve as the connective tissue across Alliance Staff Leadership and working group peers. This involves coordinating internal activities, surfacing dependencies, and ensuring commitments are met on time.
  • Define and maintain clear performance indicators in partnership with Steering Committees, with a focus on delivery cadence, communication quality, and specification milestones.
  • Travel: Attend regional ad hoc in-person meetings and Member in-person meetings as required (up to 20% travel covering both domestic and international travel).

Qualifications

  • Education: BSc/BA in management, engineering or a relevant field; MSc/MA is preferred
  • Experience: Seven (7) or more years of related Project Management experience. Experience in Standards Development Organizations or technology consortia required.
  • Exceptional communicator, with experience in communications and organizational methodology, and experience managing in complex environments.
  • Change management and communications experience a plus (eg, CMC in technology consultancy)
  • Certification: Project Management Professional Certification is a plus
  • Experience working in international team environments, across multiple time zones and continents.

Required Skills

  • Proven experience as a project/program director or similar managerial position with translatable skills
  • Expert-level understanding of project/program management techniques and methods
  • Expert-level knowledge of developing key metrics for project evaluation and reporting
  • Working knowledge of MS Office and Program Management software (Asana, Jira, Microsoft Project or equivalent)
  • Proven exceptional, professional written and verbal communication skills
  • Analytic and critical thinking mindset with complex problem-solving ability
  • Active learning/listening
  • Ability to tailor communication style to varied audiences spanning from C-suite to highly technical backgrounds
  • Proven stakeholder management, sound judgment, and decision making
  • Ability to operate in a high demand, fast-paced standards development environment
  • Scrum master preferred.