Manager, Customer Experience Transformation

USG is an industry-leading manufacturer of building products and innovative solutions. For over 120 years, Chicago-based USG has developed award-winning wall, ceiling, flooring, sheathing, and roofing products that enable customers to build outstanding spaces where people live, work, and play. With over 8,700 employees across North America and operations around the world, we are steadfastly committed to our core values: safety, innovation, quality, integrity, service, diversity, and efficiency.

We’re big enough that our professionals have the resources to make a difference, yet small enough that you’re not just a number. You’ll work on key initiatives and build strong relationships across the company that will position USG for growth into the future.

USG offers work-life balance, specialist and general/managerial career paths, promotion from within, exceptional benefits, and incredible long-term career opportunities for the right professional. Each year, we have hundreds of employees who celebrate milestone anniversaries with us.

Position Summary:

Serve as the overall project controller and project manager for the implementation of the multi-year Customer Experience transformation roadmap.

Key Accountabilities & Responsibilities:

The Manager, Customer Experience Transformation will support the cohesive implementation of the Customer Experience (CX) team’s multi-year transformation strategy, which is focused on ensuring that USG delivers a seamless experience for our customers and is easiest to do business with.

This role will work across CX, IT, Financial Planning & Analysis, and other departments as needed to support financial tracking & analysis and project management efforts.

On the financial and analysis front, you play a critical role in managing and controlling project finances, resources, and schedules to ensure successful delivery of the multi-year, cross-functional CX transformation project and its underlying initiatives. Your responsibilities include tracking project budgets, monitoring costs, and forecasting financial performance. Additionally, you collaborate with project managers and stakeholders to advise on project plans to identify risks and implement mitigation strategies to keep projects on track and within budget.

On the project management front, you will play a pivotal part in managing change and engagement activities across our teams, thereby enabling our stakeholders towards our new customer experience strategy. You hold all relevant information together, while ensuring compliance of the overall program timeline and individual deliverables. You generate transparency and foster knowledge exchange within the program team. Your activities will support the team's success by driving both overarching tasks and the improvement and development of new program processes and concepts.

Managing and controlling project finances:

• Develop and maintain project budgets, forecasts, and financial models to track project costs, revenues, and profitability.
• Monitor project expenses, labor costs, and resource utilization against budgeted targets, identifying variances and taking corrective actions as needed.
• Generate financial reports and dashboards to provide project stakeholders with timely insights into project financial performance, including cost-to-complete and earned value analysis.
• Collaborate with project managers to develop project plans, work-breakdown structures, and resource allocation schedules, ensuring alignment with project objectives and constraints.
• Conduct risk assessments and identify potential project risks and opportunities, working with project teams to develop risk mitigation and contingency plans.
• Ensure compliance with project governance processes, financial policies, and regulatory requirements, and provide guidance and support to project teams on project controls and reporting standards.

Planning:

• Design rollout blueprints for new processes and manage the set-up.
• Coordinate planning activities across workstreams and stakeholder groups by consolidating, aligning, and validating planning between different projects.
• Support CX leadership in generating and maintaining a holistic roadmap of current, upcoming, and future change activities.

Project management:

• Drive the overall project management for the CX transformation strategy implementation, working across program teams to ensure consistency in planning, transparency in progress, and effective risk management implementation throughout.
• Serve in a central coordination and tracking role to ensure transparency and consistency in measures used, timelines in progress, and resources available.
• Help ensure realization of planned changes and training measures within the timelines, budgets, and scopes aligned on.
• Support team members, as needed, in the daily operations of steering projects and programs.
• Support the improvement and development of PMO processes and systems within the CX team.

Organizational support in change activities:

• Support change measures, as needed, across stakeholder groups throughout the strategy implementation.
• Ensure organization and execution of larger trainings associated with the CX transformation implementation.
• Lead smaller sub-projects, as needed, within the transformation, ensuring they stay within scope, time, and budget.
• Support training incubation and team enablement.

Managing project communication:

• Support in preparing executive presentations for CX leadership and relevant stakeholders, providing both content and implementation updates for the CX transformation strategy.
• Support stakeholder communication with presentations on status and plans.
• Actively participate in program proposals.

Requirements

Education & Professional Experience:

• Bachelor’s or master’s degree, with a focus on business administration or equivalent preferred
• A total of at least 5 years of relevant experience, across financial and project management, ideally in a role with an enterprise scope in a large organization
• Relevant experience in a customer experience function (marketing, sales and service) a plus
• Project management certifications a plus

Soft-Skills:

• High degree of empathy and ability to anticipate team and stakeholder needs
• Strong customer mindset and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to hear someone’s needs, translate them into concreate activities, and take action
• Excellent collaboration skills for effectively interacting with cross-departmental project managers, team members, and stakeholders to gather project information, provide updates, and resolve issues
• Interested in working in fast-paced and dynamic environments
• Takes a hands-on mentality in driving work forward
• Good communication skills and fearless in communicating with different stakeholders
• Ability to work well under pressure, manage competing priorities, and adapt to changing project requirements and constraints in a dynamic project environment
• Detail-oriented mindset with a focus on accuracy, completeness, and integrity in project data, documentation, and reporting
• Continuous improvement mindset, seeking opportunities to streamline processes, enhance efficiencies, and optimize project controls practices to drive project performance and outcomes
• Presentation skills and experience are a plus
• Eager and consistent learner with a natural curiosity for the work of USG and the Customer Experience team

Hard-Skills:

• Independent, structured and analytical thinker with excellent organizational skills
• Strong analytical- and problem-solving abilities for managing multiple projects in parallel, identifying project risks, analyzing cost variances, and recommending corrective actions to keep projects on track
• Proficiency in project management methodologies, tools, and techniques, with experience in project planning, scheduling, evaluation, and execution
• Knowledge of project accounting principles, cost management practices, and financial analysis techniques for tracking and controlling project finances
• Understanding of project governance frameworks, compliance requirements, and regulatory standards relevant to project management and control
• End-to-end thinking and result orientation
• Familiarity with financial management systems and enterprise resource planning (ERP) platforms for managing project budgets, expenses, and resource allocations
• Proficiency in Microsoft Excel for developing financial models, analyzing project data, and generating reports and dashboards
• Fluent in English, verbally and written. Spanish and/or French a desired add-on skill

Rate of pay may be adjusted based on the qualifications and experience of the candidate.

Since 1902, Chicago-based USG has been a leader in producing innovative, award-winning products and systems to build everything from major commercial developments and residential housing to home improvements. USG's employees are committed to the highest levels of customer satisfaction and quality in everything we do. Our steadfast commitment to the company's core business values – innovation, quality, integrity, service, diversity, efficiency and safety – have helped us become the company we are today.

EOE including disability/veteran