Senior Project Manager, Strategic Initiatives
Work Arrangement
Office Days per Week: 3 days
Key Skills
Job Description
Overview
The Senior Project Manager, Strategic Initiatives sits within the Strategy Team and drives the delivery of cross-functional strategic initiatives across EMEA. Working closely with the Sr. Director, Strategy and functional leaders, the role brings structure, pace and clarity to complex initiatives spanning functions and markets, with a focus on commercial, customer experience, store operations, and digital priorities.
Day to day, the role coordinates delivery and portfolio management by creating transparency on progress, dependencies, and risks. It keeps stakeholders aligned and provides leadership with clear, decision-ready insights to keep initiatives focused on impact. The role also supports the Sr. Director in translating strategy into plans and works with functional teams to adopt new ways of working and realise benefits.
The role has no direct reports and delivers through influence – mobilising and aligning teams across functions and markets, partnering with executive sponsors, functional leaders and workstream owners, and escalating where senior decisions are needed.
Responsibilities
Strategic Initiative Planning and Mobilisation
- Support the Sr. Director, Strategy in translating agreed strategic priorities into structured, executable plans - drafting objectives, milestones, owners, and success measures for review and sign-off.
- Support the scoping and shaping of initiatives with a direct impact on profitability, pulling together the analysis, options, and trade-offs that underpin the case for change and the leadership decision.
Programme delivery and pace-setting
- Drive day-to-day delivery of assigned strategic initiatives, setting clear expectations and holding workstream owners to agreed standards and milestones.
- Lead PMO rhythms: steering committees, programme boards, weekly delivery reviews, and reporting.
- Identify risks early, remove blockers, and escalate with clear options and recommendations.
- Drive consistent delivery methods across teams (standards, templates, tooling, ways of working).
- Build and run the integrated roadmap, managing cross-programme dependencies and critical path.
- Establish clear outcomes, KPIs, and benefits tracking across initiatives.
Stakeholder management and alignment
- Partner with executive sponsors, functional leaders and workstream owners - building the relationships that keep initiatives moving and translating complex delivery detail into messages that land with both senior leadership and delivery teams.
- Maintain the stakeholder map for each initiative, agreeing who is consulted, informed, and involved in decisions, and keeping engagement plans current as initiatives move through delivery.
Change and benefits realisation
- Coordinate change adoption activities across initiatives - readiness, communications, training, and field enablement - supporting functional and market teams as they embed new ways of working and flagging where additional support is needed.
- Capture lessons learned at initiative close and feed them back into delivery standards and ways of working.
- Track benefits realisation and ensure initiatives deliver the promised value.
Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree in business or a related field (MBA a plus).
- 5-7 years of experience in project or programme management, strategic initiatives, business transformation, or strategy delivery - ideally in retail or a similarly complex, customer-facing environment - including delivery of multi-workstream initiatives in an international, matrixed organisation.
- Strong portfolio coordination capabilities - prioritisation support, dependency management, delivery governance, and benefits tracking across several initiatives running in parallel.
- Excellent stakeholder and communication skills - able to influence and work confidently with senior functional leaders, and produce crisp executive updates, clear narrative, and actionable reporting.
- A pragmatic delivery mindset - comfortable with ambiguity, able to impose structure quickly, anticipate what’s needed, make pragmatic trade-offs and escalate when required, and experienced running governance rhythms such as steering committees and delivery reviews.
- Strong analytical skills and the ability to interpret complex information.
- Proficiency with project and portfolio management tools, dashboarding, and Microsoft Office applications.
Benefits
- Recognition, inclusion and belonging in a diverse environment
- 25 holidays and flexible working (hybrid position, in office ~3 days p/w)
- Employee Discount on in-store and online products
- Casual Sneaker Culture
- Learning & Health/Wellbeing programs
- Career development and growth in an ambitious international team
- Travel reimbursement
- Access to premium wellness apps
- Bike plan and contribution to gym subscription
- Pension Plan
- Discounted Collective Health plans
- Activities organized by our Social Committee #
Core Responsibilities
The Senior Project Manager drives the delivery of cross-functional strategic initiatives by coordinating progress, managing dependencies, and providing decision-ready insights to leadership. They are responsible for translating strategy into executable plans and fostering collaboration across international teams to realize business benefits.
Requirements
Candidates must have a bachelor's degree and 5-7 years of experience in project or programme management, ideally within a complex retail or customer-facing environment. Strong capabilities in portfolio coordination, stakeholder influence, and pragmatic delivery in matrixed organizations are essential.
Benefits
- Recognition, inclusion and belonging
- 25 holidays
- Flexible working
- Employee discount
- Casual sneaker culture
- Learning and health/wellbeing programs
- Career development
- Travel reimbursement
- Premium wellness apps
- Bike plan
- Gym subscription contribution
- Pension plan
- Discounted collective health plans
- Social committee activities
About Foot Locker
Industry: Retail
Company size: 10,001+ employees
Foot Locker, Inc. is a leading footwear and apparel retailer that unlocks the “inner sneakerhead” in all of us. With approximately 2,500 retail stores in 26 countries across North America, Europe, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand, and a franchised store presence in the Middle East and Asia, Foot Locker, Inc. has a strong history of sneaker authority that sparks discovery and ignites the power of sneaker culture through its portfolio of brands, including Foot Locker, Kids Foot Locker, Champs Sports, WSS, and atmos. Our corporate headquarters is in New York City. We have domestic U.S. offices in St. Petersburg, FL; Camp Hill, PA; Junction City, KS; Los Angeles, CA; and Wausau, WI. Our European head office is in Utrecht, The Netherlands and is staffed with professionals from over 30 different countries who live, eat and breathe sneakers. Our Asia Pacific head office is based in Brisbane, Australia. Together, we are a team of customer-obsessed-sneaker-experts responsible for creating meaningful connections and unrivaled experiences with the diverse communities we service. We play to win and succeed as a team. We attribute our success to the drive and intelligence of our team members. We firmly believe that “everyone leads” at Foot Locker and are committed to leveraging the passions of our leaders across the globe. We offer our team members tools and resources to build their capabilities and cultivate a path for their career growth. We have and will continue to succeed as a great company through these ideals and strong leadership. Relentlessly committed to fuel a shared passion for self-expression, we create unrivaled experiences at the heart of the sport and sneaker communities through the power of our people. If you want to be a part of something bigger than you can imagine, you’ve come to the right place. To learn more about the incredible impact we’re making on both our local and global communities, visit our Foot Locker LinkedIn Life pages.