Program Manager

OVERVIEW

The Program Manager role directly aligns with Granite Partners’ mission to grow companies to create value for all stakeholders and objective of 100-year sustainability. Our rigorous board governance practices promote growth and ensure the sustainability of the Granite Companies.

We seek a process- and relationship-oriented working manager with strong interpersonal and critical thinking skills to implement our shared governance practices across the Boards of Directors at the ten Granite Companies. These governance practices contribute to strategic growth and investments in great people and support value creation, risk mitigation, and 100-year sustainability.

This position reports to Carrie Willis, Granite Partners’ Chief Operating Officer, and is guided by Rick Bauerly, Granite Partners Founder & CEO, our governance practices architect. In this role, you will lead multiple Board Administrators to bring our shared governance practices to the Granite Company CEOs, Board Chairs, Governance Committees, and Boards of Directors while working closely with Lathrop GPM as corporate secretary. The Board Administrators will meet monthly to collaborate on the governance practices and enable highly engaged boards that are agile, efficient, and effective. The Granite Companies are located across greater Minnesota and employ more than 3,000 team members.

THE POSITION

The Program Manager will be responsible for the following key objectives and tasks.

Shared Governance Practices – facilitate, document, and implement our governance processes comprised of 16 shared practices. These practices are grouped across the four themes of growth, talent, value creation, and sustainability as listed below:

• Envisioning strategies for growth: 1) board objectives, 2) CEO objectives, 3) strategic planning, 4) customer experience
• Attracting and retaining great people: 5) leadership development, 6) management compensation, 7) employee experience, 8) employee wellbeing
• Creating value for all stakeholders: 9) budgeting and forecasting, 10) company valuation, 11) owner dividends, 12) community engagement
• Ensuring 100-year sustainability: 13) financial statement audit, 14) cyber security assessment, 15) enterprise risk management, 16) sustainability commitments

Responsibilities include:

• Facilitate effective governance practices and streamlined board processes
• Create and launch a monthly governance practices workplan in Monday.com
• Ensure compliance and comprehensive documentation for each of the 16 practices
• Identify risks and areas for improvement aligned with the practices framework
• Research, analyze, and monitor performance of governance KPIs, including the creation of a Governance Effectiveness Index

Board Administrator Team – lead a team of 10 Board Administrators, in collaboration with the COO, to enable our shared governance practices and board work in a matrixed environment. Responsibilities include:

• Create agendas
• Organize meeting logistics
• Create meeting content, workplans, timelines, and training materials
• Deliver presentations
• Manage follow-ups
• Support survey administration
• Influence stakeholders at all levels to promote collaboration and support for shared practices
• Build relationships and foster a culture of knowledge sharing
• Facilitate the overall understanding of and commitment to the successful implementation of the shared practices

OnBoard Administration – lead the administration of Passageway’s OnBoard platform, a cloud-based board management software for efficient and effective governance. Responsibilities include:

• Administer user accounts
• Promote training
• Communicate new OnBoard features
• Align board agendas, books, minutes, and resources
• Share strategic materials across the Granite Companies

Incentives & Equity Administration – collaborate with the COO, the CEO, and our corporate counsel, Lathrop GPM, in partnership with company boards to administer leader incentives and equity compensation plans at the Granite Companies to help attract and empower outstanding leaders. Granite Partners sponsors a Stock Purchase Plan and a Stock Appreciation Rights (SARs) plan. Responsibilities include:

• Administer compensation plans (base, bonus, profit sharing)
• Administer equity transactions (stock purchase, stock sale, SARs grants, SARs redemptions)
• Support related legal documentation and quantitative calculations as well as facilitate process management calls and track closing checklists with Lathrop GPM

Shareworks Administration – lead the administration of Morgan Stanley’s Shareworks platform, a cloud-based equity administration software. Responsibilities include:

• Enter equity transaction data to maintain individual account statements and company equity capitalization tables
• Activate and orient users
• Support equity analysis and quantitative reporting
• Advance system automation
• Ensure accurate document repository

Board and/or Affinity Administration – serve as a Board Administrator to a Granite Company and/or as an Affinity Administrator to a Granite Affinity group. Responsibilities include:

• Coordinate minutes, resolutions, actions, and meeting logistics
• Connect boards / Granite Companies to Granite resources
• Brief the Granite Partners team on company / affinity progress and plans
• Assist the Governance Committee in implementing shared practices and/or assist the Affinity Facilitator in executing Affinity initiatives

Corporate Athlete – Participate in various initiatives as they arise to support the growth and sustainability of the firm. Guided by the COO, manage and execute a variety of strategic projects and contribute to the planning and operation of Granite Partners team meetings. Grow the use of project and process management in Monday.com as a core competency within the firm.

QUALIFICATIONS & QUALITIES

Education & Certifications – Bachelor’s degree with outstanding academic record required. MBA, JD, CPA, or advanced certifications in Project Management and Lean (PMP, PMI-ACP, CSM, PRINCE2, LSS) are advantageous.

Experience – Seven+ years of relevant work experience, including project management, program management, process optimization, requirements documentation, data analytics, dashboard design, and mind / business mapping. Board governance, legal, and equity/ financial experience are beneficial.

Qualities – Developed emotional intelligence, communication, and leadership abilities. Effective skills to guide people, processes, platform technologies, partner firms, and projects. Desire to learn about governance and Granite’s shared governance practices specifically. Continuous improvement and process/operations orientation; humility and service orientation; initiative and goal orientation; excellence and quality orientation. Effective influencing skills; analytical talents; critical thinker; demonstrated discernment and discretion; adaptability; and a proactive work style.

Strong sense of integrity, self-driven/motivated, and thrives in small, agile, and entrepreneurial team with diverse responsibilities and multiple assignments simultaneously. Servant leader who rolls up sleeves to help wherever needed and anticipates teammates' needs. Zeal for broad learning and managing change while being resilient and humble.

Technology & Partners – Strong passion for and experience with software applications, information systems, data, analytics, and visualizations are valued. We have a digital ecosystem, and many partner firms and platforms are relevant to the Program Manager’s role, including Monday.com for project/process management, Morgan Stanley’s Shareworks for equity administration, OnBoard for board management, Deloitte for digital strategy, Qualtrics for survey research, Korn Ferry Pay for compensation benchmarking, MMA’s Origami Risk for insurance risk management, Domo for advanced business intelligence, and Box for cloud content.

Values & Wellbeing – Purpose-driven with an alignment to Granite’s mission of growing stakeholder value and vision of enabling world-class wellbeing. Lives out Granite’s values and ethics and has a long-term orientation.

WELLBEING CULTURE & BENEFITS

Wellbeing – Our vision is “world-class individual and organizational wellbeing.” We nurture conversations about wellbeing, design our environment to support wellbeing, and measure and improve wellbeing over time.

Ownership – Granite Partners has a unique and powerful gainsharing program that eligible team members participate in after two years of service. Granite Partners earns units in Granite Equity LLC when growth in value in any given year exceeds an internal threshold and then transfers those units to team members based upon a participation rate. When earned over many years, the value of units and their cash distributions can accumulate to significant levels.

Salary – Compelling salary and a strong bonus percentage is common to all team members and paid annually unless significant economic, industry, company, or individual performance challenges persist.

Benefits – Comprehensive benefits include health savings accounts and employer cash contributions; consumer-directed health plans; dental insurance; wellbeing assessment, incentives, and coaching; employee assistance program; short-term and long-term disability insurance; life insurance; voluntary vision insurance; thirty (30) days of paid-time-off; retirement plan with a 4% match, employer-paid recordkeeping fees, and low mutual fund expense ratios; charitable giving matching program; and paid volunteer time off. A mobile and office technology suite, including iPhone, iPad or MacBook, and iMac.

Locations – St. Cloud, Minnesota (headquarters) or the Twin Cities (St. Louis Park), Minnesota with some opportunity to work remotely.