Project Team Leader/ Program Manager

TRANSEARCH International is a member of the AESC, the leading professional body representing the global executive search community. As a member firm all of our offices are committed to maintaining the highest professional standards, including a commitment to providing, wherever possible, diverse candidate shortlists.

The Ideal Candidate

Professional Skills

• Bachelor’s degree in a Technical or Management discipline is required
• Experience in Program/ Project Management is a plus
• Minimum of 3 years of experience in automotive industry is essential
• Strong knowledge of MS Office and program management software
• Excellent command of English, both written and spoken; knowledge of German is a plus
• Business acumen & attention to detail
• International Driving License
• Willingness to travel (30%)

Personality Profile

• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills
• Ability to manage time and meet/beat deadlines
• Excellent analytical and problem-solving approach
• Ability to work in a team or be a team player, used to working in a cross-functional team
• Good leadership skills

The Position

The future Project Team Leader/Program Manager will be in charge with:
• The overall direction, coordination, implementation, execution, control and completion of specific projects ensuring consistency with company strategy, commitments and goals.
• Develop good relations and communicates

Principal Responsibilities

• Preparing and defining the project scope of work, goals and deliverables
• Developing full scale project plans
• Ensuring that programs launch on time and meet deliverables
• Communicating with customers to establish effective working relationships
• Developing back-up/recovery plans, in case of unplanned set-backs in project delivery
• Managing project budget and resource allocation
• Meeting profitability, capital, and tooling financial targets at launch
• Overseeing functional areas during development, in order to meet key deliverables (Engineering, Sales, Purchasing, AME, Finance, Quality, Production)
• Ensuring cross-functional involvement in quality processes, in order to improve launch
• Monitoring and escalating timing, quality, technical and financial risks and issues on assigned projects
• Elevating and focusing management attention when there is no timely resolution
• Ensuring that timely and accurate Gate Reviews and routine reports are conducted on assigned projects, and using these tools to expose risks and elevate issues
• Determining post-launch profitability (as reported by the plants) as early as possible in development, and identifying and reporting gaps to business case profitability
• Using reporting tools as directed, i.e. program status, financials
• Remaining flexible to changing responsibilities and workload adjustments
• Managing the day to day priorities of project team members

Reporting line

The future Project Team Leader/Program Manager will report to the Head of Global Program Management and to the Plant Manager.