Program Manager

Job Description

Job Title: Program Manager (Disaster Recovery)

Job Type: 7-month contract (high possibility of extension)

Location: Mississauga, ON (Hybrid, in office 2 to 3 days a week)

Start Date: ASAP

Hours: 40 hours per week

Rate: $120/hr Inc.

Our client is seeking an accomplished Senior Program Manager to lead a large-scale, multi-vendor Infrastructure Services Disaster Recovery Program. The ideal candidate is a proven systems integrator at heart, someone who has delivered complex, enterprise-wide infrastructure transformation or DR programs, understands the technical depth, and thrives in driving accountability across multiple internal and external stakeholders (including vendors, partners, and client teams). This role will directly interface with CXO-level stakeholders, providing clear communication, executive reporting, and data-driven decision support.

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead the end-to-end delivery of the Infrastructure DR Program, from scope definition and design to implementation, testing, and steady state.
• Build and own a robust Integrated Project Plan (IPP) covering infrastructure, DR tooling, network, application dependencies, and cross-platform recovery strategies.
• Translate strategic recovery objectives (RTO/RPO) into actionable execution milestones and success metrics.
• Work closely with infrastructure SMEs on DR design, architecture, replication, and failover validation (e.g., VMware, Zerto, AIX, Mainframe, Network, Storage Replication).
• Manage budgets, forecasts, and resource allocation for infrastructure projects and programs.
• Drive standardization and best practices in program and project management across teams.
• Oversee vendor relationships, contract management, and performance tracking for infrastructure partners.
• Monitor program progress, identify risks and dependencies, and implement mitigation strategies.
• Provide hands-on leadership where needed, drafting runbooks, guiding failover tests, validating configurations, and ensuring technical quality.
• Enforce standards, configuration consistency, and documentation quality across all participating teams.
• Mentor project managers and contribute to the maturity of the PMO or Infrastructure Delivery organization.
• Continually seeking opportunities to increase customer satisfaction and deepen client relationships, including promoting client collaboration on the resolution of any disputes or issues that arise during the project;
• Present progress, risks, and outcomes to executive sponsors, CTO, CISO, and business continuity leaders.
• Drive alignment across cross-functional groups, Infrastructure, Application, Network, Security, and Business Operations.
• Ensure all deliverables meet compliance, audit, and operational readiness requirements.
• Establish a strong program governance model aligning all vendors, partners, and internal teams under one operating rhythm.
• Manage dependencies and interlocks between compute, network, storage, middleware, and application streams.
• Serve as the single point of accountability for delivery performance, escalation management, and risk mitigation.

Qualifications:

• 10+ years of progressive experience in Infrastructure Program/Project Management with at least 7+ years leading complex DR and large-scale infrastructure transformation programs.
• Proven ability to lead multi-vendor, cross-functional programs involving data center, virtualization, storage, and network technologies.
• Strong understanding of DR technologies (e.g., Zerto, SRM, Azure Site Recovery), virtualization (VMware, AVS), and enterprise infrastructure architectures.
• Strategic and hands-on, capable of building a cohesive integrated project plan (IPP) that brings together multiple moving parts across compute, storage, network, security, virtualization, application tiers and business processes
• Demonstrated success in building integrated project plans across multiple workstreams with complex interdependencies.
• Exceptional stakeholder management skills, able to influence and present confidently to CXOs and technical teams alike.
• Solid grounding in ITIL, PMI, or PRINCE2 frameworks
• Strong analytical and problem-solving capabilities; capable of bridging business and technical domains.
• Demonstrated success establishing and maintain Executive-level relationships
• Experience in public sector or regulated environments is an asset.