Alcon Top Project Manager

At Alcon, we are driven by the meaningful work we do to help people see brilliantly. We innovate boldly, champion progress, and act with speed as the global leader in eye care. Here, you’ll be recognized for your commitment and contributions and see your career like never before. Together, we go above and beyond to make an impact in the lives of our patients and customers. We foster an inclusive culture and are looking for diverse, talented people to join Alcon. 

As an Alcon Top Projects Manager (ATPM), Vision Care (EOD and Pharma), in our John’s Creek, Georgia location you will be responsible for leading project planning and managing project execution of Alcon's most critical development projects (Alcon Top Projects, ATPs), driving accountability for technical, commercial, and strategic deliverables.

This role reports to the Head of ATP Project Management and supports the Project and Core Team leader. As an engine of project momentum, the ATPM promotes the cross-functional communication, alignment, and accountability needed to drive towards ambitious project objectives, and as a guardian of the critical path, is forward-looking to help the Project Leader de-risk near and long-term milestones.

The person in this role designs and implements business processes to enable product research and development portfolio prioritization, resource allocation, and risk management. Designs related integrated process and product team activities and directs technical and operational activities to ensure vertical and horizontal integration. Provides product portfolio analyses and reports to management committees for support of decision-making. Leads teams in strategy efforts, lifecycle management planning, and assessments of probability-of-success. Develops systems to support dynamic portfolio management. Serves a key role in portfolio evaluation process. Drives initiatives across functions, research and development units to create fully integrated strategies. Monitors and reports on portfolio status and proactively addresses and resolves issues.

In this role, a typical day will include: 

Leads Project Planning:

• Leads, and is fully accountable for, the development of project plans, budgets, forecasts, timelines, and milestones in consultation with Core Team members and Project Lead.

• Understands the critical path and drives timeline scenario planning and implication identification.

• Does not accept the status quo but actively challenges the team on timeline-driven activities and does not accept changes to timeline/budget without understanding their downstream implications.

Manages Project Execution:

• Manages project execution and holds Core Team member accountable for project execution, driving accountability with cross-functional teams to meet milestones, budgets, and scope.

• In support of the ATP PL, actively challenges team’s approach to ensure quality, performance, alignment, and pace. Continually monitors for opportunities for acceleration and drives alignment as priorities or business needs evolve, ensuring teams remain on track toward key objectives.

Builds & Maintains Budgets:

• Builds and maintains project budgets, in collaboration with the Core Team and resource managers to define annual strategic plan inputs, target budgets, and provides accurate forecasts.

• Monitors budget-to-actual variances on a monthly and quarterly basis with a focus on year-end results, identifying deviations early and implementing acceleration and deferment opportunities to deliver the committed target budget.

Drives Task Collaboration:

• Drives task collaboration across Core Team members, facilitating open communication and ensuring alignment.

• Anticipates the risks, challenges, and interdependencies to avoid adverse impact on project execution.

Drives Timeline and Budget Mitigations and Escalations:

• Monitors project plan to proactively identify and drive timeline and budget risk mitigations – owns and rapidly responds to unexpected issues, driving for rapid escalation and resolution. 

• Appropriately escalates to ATP PL and resource managers when needed.

Manages Core Team Meetings:

• Manages meetings with clear agendas and follows up rigorously to ensure accountability.

• Ensures the right people are included for agenda-driven topics and drives accountability among Core Team members as well as more senior staff as needed. Proactively identifies and elevates resource concerns to ATP PLs and RMs/TPLs.

Serves as Strategic Partner:

• Serves as a strategic partner to the Core Team and the Project Lead: translates the PL’s guidance into actionable tasks/milestones, helps problem-solve escalated issues, and ensures alignment within the team.

Supports Leadership Communications:

• Understands the key deliverables (financial/timeline/risks) important to senior leadership and provides content for Project Leaders to use in communications and presentations to governance. 

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience successfully managing multiple, complex, multi-year medical device new product development projects, with an annual spend greater than $10m per project.

• Advanced understanding of, and relevant project management experience across, the full medical device new product development lifecycle, from initiation to launch. 

• Experience running broad cross-functional teams with heavy and diverse engineering and scientific membership. 

• Advanced PM certification (PMP, PgPM, CSM, or other).   

• Degree in science or engineering; advanced degree.

What You'll Bring to Alcon:

•Bachelor’s Degree or Equivalent years of directly related experience (or high school+15 yrs; Assoc.+11 yrs; M.S.+4 yrs; PhD+3 yrs)

•The ability to fluently read, write, understand and communicate in English

•7 Years of Relevant Experience

How you can thrive at Alcon:

• See your career like never before with focused growth and development opportunities.

• Join Alcon’s mission to provide outstanding, innovative products and solutions to improve sight, improve lives, and grow your career!

• Alcon provides robust benefits package including health, life, retirement, flexible time off for exempt associates, PTO for hourly associates, and much more!

• Travel Requirements: 0-5%

• Relocation assistance: No

• Sponsorship available: No    

Alcon Careers

See your impact at alcon.com/careers

ATTENTION: Current Alcon Employee/Contingent Worker

If you are currently an active employee/contingent worker at Alcon, please click the appropriate link below to apply on the Internal Career site.

Find Jobs for Employees

Find Jobs for Contingent Worker

Alcon is an Equal Opportunity Employer and participates in E-Verify. Alcon takes pride in maintaining a diverse environment and our policies are not to discriminate in recruitment, hiring, training, promotion or other employment practices for reasons of race, color, religion, gender, national origin, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital or veteran status, disability, or any other legally protected status. Alcon is also committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodation to individuals with disabilities. If, because of a medical condition or disability, you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the application process, or in order to perform the essential functions of a position, please send an email to [email protected] and let us know the nature of your request and your contact information.