Complex Strategic Program Manager

Complex Strategic Program Manager
This role has been designed as 'Hybrid' with a requirement that you will work on average 2 days per week from an HPE office.
Who We Are:
Hewlett Packard Enterprise is the global edge-to-cloud company advancing the way people live and work. We help companies connect, protect, analyze, and act on their data and applications wherever they live, from edge to cloud, so they can turn insights into outcomes at the speed required to thrive in today’s complex world. Our culture thrives on finding new and better ways to accelerate what’s next. We know varied backgrounds are valued and succeed here. We have the flexibility to manage our work and personal needs. We make bold moves, together, and are a force for good. If you are looking to stretch and grow your career our culture will embrace you. Open up opportunities with HPE.
Job Description:
Role Description
The Complex Program Manager (CPM) is a key leadership role within HPE’s Private Cloud and Flex Solutions business, responsible for delivering large-scale, multi-site private cloud solutions as a single integrated program. In this role, you will coordinate multiple HPE technologies, including compute, storage, networking, and software, alongside Deployment Services, Professional Services, Managed Services, Local PMOs, third-party partners, and customer teams to achieve successful business outcomes.
The CPM engages early in the sales lifecycle as part of the Center of Excellence pursuit team, helping ensure solutions are deliverable as sold. From initial order and factory build (Day 0), through deployment (Day 1), migration activities (Day 2), and transition into Managed Services operations (Day M), you will provide end-to-end program leadership. This highly visible role requires strong governance, executive-level communication, and the ability to drive alignment across diverse stakeholders while delivering some of HPE’s most innovative and complex solutions.
Success in this position requires a combination of program management expertise, technical acumen, relationship management, cross-functional leadership, and meticulous attention to detail.
What Makes This Role Complex
The CPM leads programs that integrate multiple HPE products into a single customer solution, while direct ownership of those products remains with separate business units. Networking, compute, storage, and software offerings each follow independent roadmaps and release cycles. Program delivery responsibilities are distributed across the CPMO, Local PMOs, Engineering, Managed Services, partners, and customer teams. The CPM is accountable for driving alignment, managing dependencies, resolving issues, escalating risks, and leading recovery efforts whenever program outcomes are at risk.
Responsibilities
Value Chain Alignment
Align Sales, the Center of Excellence, Business Unit Engineering, Supply Chain, Services, Local PMOs, and partner organizations around a single integrated delivery plan, beginning in pre-sales to ensure solutions are deliverable as sold.
Lead structured handoff and transition reviews at each major program phase (pursuit to order, factory to site, deployment to operations), ensuring documented entry and exit criteria are met.
End-to-End Schedule Management
Own and maintain the integrated master schedule from order through delivery and execution, ensuring alignment with product release timelines, material availability, dependencies, and critical path activities.
Oversee end-to-end execution across factory build, deployment, migration waves, cutovers, rollback planning, and hypercare activities, coordinating Local PMOs, Deployment Services, Engineering, and customer teams.
Operating Model
Lead stakeholder engagement, governance, and go/no-go readiness reviews throughout the program lifecycle.
Ensure customer communications are consistent, coordinated, and delivered through agreed governance channels.
Escalation Management
Identify and communicate issues early, including business impact assessments and recovery plans.
Partner with CPMO leadership and executive sponsors to address risks and issues before escalation to customers or partners becomes necessary.
Risk and Change Management
Maintain a comprehensive RAID (Risks, Assumptions, Issues, and Dependencies) log as the program’s single source of truth, ensuring every item has a defined owner, mitigation strategy, and target completion date.
Drive formal change control processes for scope, schedule, and cost impacts.
Assess troubled or at-risk programs, identify root causes, develop recovery strategies, and restore execution health and stakeholder confidence.
Skills
Communication: Delivers clear, concise, and transparent status updates; proactively communicates challenges along with actionable recovery plans.
Ownership: Takes accountability for overall program outcomes, even when delivery responsibilities are distributed across multiple teams and organizations.
Critical Thinking: Evaluates assumptions, identifies cross-functional dependencies, anticipates risks, and proactively addresses potential issues.
Leadership: Influences decisions and drives alignment across teams and stakeholders without direct authority; escalates strategically when required.
Education and Experience Required
Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Computer Science, Information Systems, or related field; equivalent practical experience will also be considered.
10+ years of experience leading complex global infrastructure programs, including data center and/or private cloud implementations, in geographically distributed environments.
Working knowledge of compute, enterprise storage, networking technologies, and private cloud or virtualization operating models.
Demonstrated success assessing, stabilizing, and recovering troubled or at-risk programs.
Extensive program management experience using Waterfall and/or Agile methodologies, including integrated scheduling, RAID management, financial oversight, resource planning, and dependency management.
Experience leading large-scale migration and cutover initiatives across multiple locations and time zones.
Strong customer relationship management and executive stakeholder communication skills.
Proficiency with program management and collaboration tools such as Microsoft Project, Smartsheet, Jira, ServiceNow, Confluence, and SharePoint.
Willingness to travel globally up to 20% to support customer engagements and major implementation milestones.
Preferred Qualifications
Experience with security and compliance requirements, including security accreditation (ATO), STIG hardening, NATO standards, and vulnerability management practices.
Experience delivering programs within regulated industries; government contracting experience and active security clearances are highly desirable.
Background in data center exit, consolidation, cloud migration, and digital transformation initiatives.
Understanding of data center deployment activities, including site readiness, rack and stack, cabling, provisioning, and systems integration, with the ability to effectively oversee Deployment Services teams.
PMP (PMI), ITIL, Agile, or related professional certifications.
Accessibility
HPE is committed to creating an inclusive and accessible workplace and encourages applications from all qualified individuals, including those with disabilities. If you believe you require accommodation during any stage of the application or interview process, please submit your request by completing our secure form linked here.
Note: This option is reserved for applicants needing assistance/reasonable accommodation related to a disability.
What We Can Offer You:
Health & Wellbeing
We strive to provide our team members and their loved ones with a comprehensive suite of benefits that supports their physical, financial and emotional wellbeing.
Personal & Professional Development
We also invest in your career because the better you are, the better we all are. We have specific programs catered to helping you reach any career goals you have — whether you want to become a knowledge expert in your field or apply your skills to another d