Lead Project Manager (Pension Admin Systems)

Job Title: Lead Project Manager (Pension Admin Systems)



Job ID: CalSTRS Pension Admin Systems Project Managers



Client: CalSTRS



Location: Hybrid, Sacramento, CA



Employment Type: Contract I. Position Overview

We are seeking a highly experienced Lead Project Manager to provide strategic leadership and hands-on execution for a large-scale, complex technology implementation. This individual will serve as the primary driver of the initiative, establishing a clear strategic vision, aligning multiple teams and stakeholders, and ensuring that project objectives move forward with urgency, accountability, and direction.

The ideal candidate is a seasoned, confident, and highly proactive project leader who is comfortable stepping into an environment with multiple teams, competing priorities, and limited coordination. This person must be able to quickly assess the current state, establish structure and governance, define the path forward, and actively drive internal teams and external vendors toward successful implementation.

Note: This is not a passive project management role. The Lead Project Manager must be willing to be hands-on, challenge teams when necessary, remove roadblocks, hold stakeholders accountable, and ensure decisions and deliverables are completed on schedule.

II. Key Responsibilities

Strategic Leadership & Execution

• Develop and communicate a clear strategic vision, implementation roadmap, and execution strategy for a large-scale technology initiative.
• Translate strategic objectives into actionable project plans, milestones, workstreams, and measurable outcomes.
• Establish structure and direction across teams that require greater coordination, alignment, and accountability.
• Serve as the primary driver of project execution, proactively identifying what needs to happen next and ensuring teams follow through.
• Provide decisive leadership in resolving competing priorities, dependencies, risks, and implementation challenges.

Program & Project Management

• Lead end-to-end project management across planning, execution, monitoring, implementation, and close-out phases.
• Provide leadership and expertise across the Project Approval Lifecycle (PAL) and associated project activities.
• Develop, maintain, and actively manage integrated project plans, schedules, budgets, milestones, dependencies, and deliverables.
• Lead large, complex, multi-year technology initiatives with multiple interconnected workstreams.
• Establish project governance, reporting structures, decision-making processes, and escalation paths.

Cross-Functional Team Leadership

• Lead and coordinate cross-functional business, technology, operational, and project teams to create alignment around implementation objectives.
• Establish clear roles, responsibilities, ownership, dependencies, and expectations across project workstreams.
• Drive accountability by actively following up on commitments, decisions, action items, and deliverables.
• Facilitate difficult conversations and confidently challenge stakeholders when additional action, clarity, or accountability is required.

Vendor & Stakeholder Management

• Serve as a primary liaison between internal teams, executive stakeholders, external vendors, subcontractors, and other project participants.
• Work closely with the software implementation vendor to coordinate implementation activities, timelines, dependencies, deliverables, and issue resolution.
• Establish clear expectations and accountability for vendor performance and deliverables.
• Build productive relationships across business and technical teams while maintaining the authority necessary to drive project outcomes.

Governance, Communication & Reporting

• Lead project governance meetings, executive briefings, steering committee discussions, and working sessions.
• Prepare and deliver clear status reports, executive presentations, project documentation, and decision materials.
• Provide leadership with visibility into project health, progress, risks, dependencies, decisions, and areas requiring intervention.
• Apply project management best practices, including PMBOK, Agile, Waterfall, or Hybrid approaches, based on project needs.

III. Qualifications

Required Experience:

• 8+ Years: Project/program management experience.
• 7+ Years: Experience supporting State or government agencies.
• 6+ Years: Experience leading large and/or complex IT projects.
• Project Scale: Demonstrated experience leading multi-million-dollar, multi-year technology initiatives of $5M or greater.
• Methodologies: Demonstrated experience providing leadership across Project Approval Lifecycle (PAL) stages.
• Implementations: Demonstrated success leading complex software or technology implementations involving multiple business and technical teams.
• Vendor Management: Strong experience coordinating internal teams and third-party technology or enterprise software implementation vendors.
• Tools: Proficiency with Microsoft Project and project management/collaboration tools such as Jira and Smartsheet.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Current PMP certification (Highly Required/Preferred).
• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Business, Information Technology, Public Administration, or a related field.