Running a $25M Global Program Across 70 Projects
This program covered 70 projects, four vendor operations and more than 400 vendor resources. I owned the end-to-end financial management and helped run the operating cadence around vendors, reviews, OKRs, risk and program improvement.
The work combined finance, operations and program management every day.
With 70 projects and four vendor operations, the financial picture could not be separated from the operational one. Forecasts, purchase orders, run rates, invoicing and accruals all depended on what was happening across the program.
The role also included recurring business reviews, vendor coordination, access and compliance work, process improvement and management reporting.
The program needed consistency without creating a heavy central process.
End-to-end financial control
Forecasting, budgeting, fund allocation, POs, run rates, invoicing and accruals all needed to reconcile across the program.
Seventy projects
Individual projects had their own work, but leadership still needed a program-level view of performance and issues.
Four vendor operations
Different vendor teams had to work within common financial, workforce, compliance and reporting expectations.
Regular management attention
The program needed a dependable weekly, monthly and quarterly rhythm so OKRs, performance and risks stayed visible.
I owned the financial backbone and helped keep the operating model connected.
As Program Manager, I was responsible for the program financials and also worked across vendor operations, business reviews, process improvements, access governance and reporting. That gave me a broad view of how decisions in one area affected the others.
Build one operating rhythm around the work instead of managing every stream separately.
Owned the program financial cycle
Managed forecasting, budgeting, POs, fund allocation, run rates, invoicing and accruals across the $25M program.
Ran recurring business reviews
Orchestrated weekly, monthly and quarterly reviews and OKR tracking across operational, financial and project performance.
Connected vendor operations to program governance
Worked across four vendor operations so workforce, finance, access and delivery issues could be managed in the same program context.
Improved the machinery behind the program
Supported automation, playbook development and internal tool improvements to reduce manual work and make practices more repeatable.
The main risk was fragmentation — one program behaving like several unrelated operations.
Forecast, run-rate, invoice and accrual management kept the financial picture current and reconcilable.
Common review and governance expectations gave the four vendor operations a shared program rhythm.
Worked with Risk teams on secure and compliant access management across vendor operations.
Playbooks and process improvements helped reduce reliance on local ways of working.
Recurring business reviews created a regular point to surface issues and ask for decisions.
The role involved people who cared about very different things — and all of them were right.
Finance needed control, vendors needed workable processes, project teams needed delivery support and risk stakeholders needed compliance. Program management meant keeping those requirements visible without letting one of them dominate the whole operating model.
The program operated with end-to-end financial governance and a consistent management cadence.
The lesson for me was that large programs are easier to run when finance, operations and governance use the same rhythm. Separate meetings and separate numbers create separate versions of the program.
Some operational detail and internal terminology have been generalised to respect organisational confidentiality.