Job Description

The Senior Manager, Program & Client Engagement is responsible for the successful delivery of complex healthcare programs and for leading client engagement across assigned accounts. This role serves as an accountable delivery lead for program outcomes and client satisfaction, overseeing multi-year, multi-workstream initiatives spanning technology implementation, analytics, operations, and regulatory compliance.

Blending hands-on program leadership with proactive relationship management, the Senior Manager ensures delivery excellence, predictable financial performance, and sustained client value. The role requires strong executive-level communication, the ability to lead across matrixed teams, and disciplined delivery management while building trusted advisor relationships with client stakeholders.

Key Responsibilities:

Program & Portfolio Leadership

• Lead delivery of one or more complex healthcare programs or portfolios, coordinating multiple parallel projects, vendors, and internal teams.
• Create and manage integrated program plans, including scope, milestones, dependencies, risks, resourcing, and financial targets.
• Ensure delivery is on time, within scope, and within budget while meeting contractual, operational, and regulatory obligations.
• Drive governance across Agile and Waterfall delivery models
• Oversee cross-functional teams including product, engineering, operations and vendors
• Maintain a holistic view of overlapping initiatives, resource utilization, and downstream impacts across the portfolio; surface tradeoffs and recommendations.
• Ensure consistent use of standard program management artifacts, reporting, and governance processes; coach teams on adoption and quality.
• Establish and enforce environment governance (DEV/QA/PROD discipline) to reduce delivery risk
• Drive root cause analysis and resolution frameworks for recurring delivery issues
• Implement performance and SLA tracking across all workstreams

Client Engagement & Executive Relationship Management

• Serve as a primary escalation point and delivery partner for client leaders and senior stakeholders
• Identify options and provide recommendations to resolve issues.
• Build and maintain strong trusted relationships rooted in transparency, credibility, accountability and results
• Lead executive-level meetings, steering committees and governance forums.
• Manage client expectations related to scope, quality, timelines, and outcomes; proactively address risks and concerns.
• Partner with clients to define success measures, roadmap priorities, and continuous improvement opportunities.
• Support contract execution, renewals, and change control in collaboration with sales, legal, finance, and delivery leadership.
• Proactively manage client perception and escalation risk, especially in high-visibility situations
• Translate technical constraints into business-impact language for executive stakeholders

Financial & Resource Management

• Manage and own program-level financial performance, including forecasting, budget tracking, and variance analysis; escalate risks early with mitigation options.
• Ensure accurate estimation of effort, costs, and resource requirements across phases and workstreams & drive financial transparency with clients to reduce billing disputes
• Manage and optimize staffing plans and utilization across internal teams and subcontractors.
• Partner with finance and delivery leadership to support margin, revenue, and cost targets for assigned programs.
• Identify and address cost leakage and billing misalignment

Risk, Quality, and Compliance Management

• Identify and manage risks, issues, and mitigation strategies.
• Ensure compliance with Federal and state healthcare program requirements.
• Be accountable for quality of deliverables and readiness for client acceptance; ensure traceability to requirements and contractual commitments.
• Drive continuous improvement through post‑implementation reviews and lessons learned
• Enforce change management discipline, including clear classification of configuration vs code changes
• Ensure compliance expectations are clearly defined and not misaligned with billing models

People Leadership & Organizational Contribution

• Foster a culture of accountability, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
• Actively participate in departmental and leadership forums, contributing to delivery maturity, tools, and best practices.
• Support and contribute to organizational initiatives focused on delivery excellence, talent development, and client success.
• Drive alignment across teams to ensure consistent execution and communication

Qualifications & Core Competencies

• Executive‑level communication and stakeholder management
• Strategic thinking with strong operational execution
• Program and portfolio governance
• Financial planning and performance management
• Risk management and problem solving
• Client relationship ownership and escalation management
• Ability to operate effectively in highly complex, regulated environments

Education

• Bachelor’s degree required; advanced degree preferred
• PMP certification or completion of a recognized project/program management certification program

Experience Requirements

• 10+ years of professional experience managing large, complex healthcare programs
• Proven experience in client facing leadership or account management roles
• Experience with healthcare delivery, managed care, HMO, or government‑sponsored programs, preferably supporting care management and population health programs
• Strong understanding of software development lifecycles, system implementations and releases
• Ability to operate independently and drive outcomes under pressure within constrained timelines
• Demonstrated ability to lead in highly regulated environments (Medicaid, Medicare, Federal Programs)
• Advanced proficiency with Microsoft Project and Microsoft Office tools (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Visio, Project)
• US Citizenship required

EXL (NASDAQ: EXLS) is a leading data analytics and digital operations and solutions company. We partner with clients using a data and AI-led approach to reinvent business models, drive better business outcomes and unlock growth with speed. EXL harnesses the power of data, analytics, AI, and deep industry knowledge to transform operations for the world’s leading corporations in industries including insurance, healthcare, banking and financial services, media and retail, among others. EXL was founded in 1999 with the core values of innovation, collaboration, excellence, integrity and respect. We are headquartered in New York and have more than 54,000 employees spanning six continents. For more information, visit www.exlservice.com EXL never requires or asks for fees/payments or credit card or bank details during any phase of the recruitment or hiring process and has not authorized any agencies or partners to collect any fee or payment from prospective candidates. EXL will only extend a job offer after a candidate has gone through a formal interview process with members of EXL’s Human Resources team, as well as our hiring managers.