Position Summary
The Program Manager will lead delivery of two interdependent data governance and identity initiatives within the Data & Applied Analytics organization: the Data Access Request System (DARS) and the Digital Wallet & Person/Entity ID Gateway. These initiatives sit within the FY27 governance and identity portfolio and depend on foundational data governance and entity resolution work already underway.
The Program Manager will manage the Business Analyst contractor, System Builder contractor(s), and Data Engineer contractor(s) supporting both initiatives, coordinate closely with the Data Governance Director and Applied Analytics leadership, and track a small-scope pilot rollout for the Digital Wallet alongside the design and early build phases of DARS.
The Program Manager reports program status to Data & Applied Analytics leadership and is accountable for keeping both initiatives on schedule and within approved FY27 budget, while positioning each for scale-up in FY28.
Key Responsibilities
Program Leadership & Delivery
Governance, Oversight & Risk Management
Contractor and Dependency Management
Stakeholder Coordination
Quality and Readiness
Continuous Improvement
Program Leadership & Delivery
- Lead end-to-end delivery coordination for DARS (design phase through initial build) and the Digital Wallet/Gateway (small-scope pilot).
- Develop, maintain, and refine an integrated program schedule showing dependencies across both initiatives, including onboarding timelines, procurement completion dates, and design-to-build handoffs.
- Sequence the DARS workstream from requirements gathering and workflow mapping through DUA Metadata Engine and IAM-based approval routing build.
- Sequence the Wallet workstream from Golden Record entity resolution through ID Gateway build and the Natural Resources wallet pilot test.
- Identify and escalate risks to timeline caused by onboarding delays, procurement delays, or unresolved dependencies, and propose corrective action.
Governance, Oversight & Risk Management
- Maintain a risk log, issue log, and decision log covering both initiatives.
- Report program status, budget-to-actual spend, and risks to Data & Applied Analytics leadership on a regular cadence.
- Track approval checkpoints tied to the Data Governance Director, including sign-off on DARS design deliverables before System Builder engagement begins.
- Ensure contractor deliverables (requirements documents, workflow maps, IAM architecture design, build milestones) meet agreed standards before work proceeds to the next phase.
Contractor and Dependency Management
- Manage the Business Analyst contractor, who writes requirements and SOWs feeding both DARS and the Wallet System Builder engagement. Because this contractor's output gates the start of System Builder work on both initiatives, the Program Manager must actively manage this single point of dependency.
- Track TOPS 90-day onboarding timelines for each contractor role and flag any request delays that push onboarding dates.
- Track procurement timelines for supporting tools, including the API Gateway software procurement for the Wallet initiative.
- Coordinate handoffs between design/requirements work and build work so that System Builder contractors are not idle waiting on inputs, and are not engaged before their SOW and lead time are complete.
Stakeholder Coordination
- Coordinate with the Data Governance Director, Applied Analytics leadership, and technical contractor teams throughout the design-heavy early phase of both initiatives.
- Support agency-facing communication as the Wallet pilot moves toward the Natural Resources test and as DARS moves toward its first agency use cases.
- Keep leadership informed of scope, timeline, and budget changes as they occur, without waiting for scheduled status meetings if a change is material.
Quality and Readiness
- Confirm that DARS design deliverables (requirements, DUA workflow maps, IAM architecture) are complete and approved before the System Builder contractor begins build work.
- Confirm entity resolution (Golden Record) progress is sufficient before Gateway build work proceeds.
- Support readiness review before the Natural Resources wallet pilot goes live.
Continuous Improvement
- Document lessons learned from the FY27 design and pilot phases to inform FY28 scale-up planning (DARS multi-agency automation, Wallet licensing expansion).
- Recommend adjustments to onboarding and procurement sequencing based on what worked or caused delay in FY27.
Key Deliverables
The Program Manager is responsible for direct creation of the following deliverables:
Integrated program schedule and dependency map covering DARS and the Digital Wallet/Gateway
Tracking and documentation of all artifacts
Risk log, issue log, and decision log
Program status reports and budget-to-actual tracking for leadership review
Contractor onboarding and procurement tracker, showing TOPS and procurement lead times against actual dates
Year-end handoff document positioning both initiatives for FY28 scale-up.
Qualifications
Education
Preferred Certifications
Experience
Additional Experience & Leadership Expectations
Education
- Bachelor's degree in information systems, business, public administration, computer science, or a related field required.
Preferred Certifications
- PMP (2021 or later)
- Certified Scrum Master (CSM) or equivalent
Experience
- 5+ years managing technology or data programs with multiple dependent workstreams.
- Direct experience managing contractor teams and vendor deliverables, ideally under fixed lead-time procurement or staffing vehicles.
- Experience with data governance, data sharing agreements, or identity and access management concepts is strongly preferred.
- Experience managing project timelines with hard dependency chains, where a delay in one workstream affects another.
Additional Experience & Leadership Expectations
- Demonstrated ability to influence and effectively communicate with Executive Directors and senior leadership, including presenting program status, risks, dependencies, decisions, and recommendations in a clear and concise manner.
- Excellent coordination, communication, and stakeholder-management skills, with the ability to align technical teams, contractors, business stakeholders, and executive leadership across multiple interdependent workstreams.
- Experience working with the Illinois Department of Public Health (DPH) is a strong plus and would be considered a nice-to-have, particularly experience supporting public-sector, healthcare, data, technology, or regulatory initiatives.
Candidate Profile
The ideal candidate is organized, direct, and comfortable managing a small number of tightly linked workstreams where sequencing matters more than raw scale. They should be confident tracking multiple lead-time clocks at once, comfortable escalating early when a dependency is at risk, and capable of keeping technical contractors, a governance director, and program leadership aligned without requiring constant oversight.