Sr. Manager, Process Owner - TMO

Sr. Manager, Process Owner - TMO

This is a critical role within Panera Bread’s Transformation Management Office (TMO), driving operational discipline and execution rigor for the company’s multi-year strategy. This role ensures transformation initiatives are planned, sequenced, and delivered on time, within scope, and aligned to enterprise priorities.

As a member of the Office of Transformation & Strategy, this position will translate strategy into actionable workplans, facilitate cross-functional alignment, manage risks and interdependencies, and maintain transparent reporting for senior leadership. The Sr. Manager acts as the central connector across teams—helping the organization “land the change” at the café level by ensuring readiness, coordination, and continuous improvement.

This role requires a detail-oriented, process-driven leader who thrives in complex, matrixed environments and brings strong project management, problem-solving, and stakeholder management skills.

Duties & Responsibilities

• Operationalize Transformation Strategy
• Translate high-level transformation goals into detailed execution plans with clear owners, milestones, and dependencies.
• Partner with Initiative Owners and Enabling Functions to sequence workstreams and align capacity planning to business priorities.
• Maintain the integrated transformation roadmap, ensuring visibility of progress, risks, and cross-initiative impacts.
• Run Program Management Cadence
• Support in leading and facilitating governance meetings, including preparing agendas, materials, and decision logs for leadership forums.
• Ensure standardized tools, templates, and governance practices are used across all initiatives.
• Drive Progress Transparency & Reporting
• Maintain dashboards, scorecards, financial tracking and program management tools to track multiple initiatives health and value delivery.
• Ensure visual representation of multiple initiatives (swim lanes) across time in an effective, simple and easy to follow framework.
• Act as a steward of the TMO’s “voice of the guest & voice of the café”, ensuring guest and field impacts are incorporated into reporting.
• Risk, Issue and Dependency Management
• Maintain a centralized risk and issue log (RAID) to surface blockers early and coordinate mitigation actions.
• Support initiative teams in scenario planning and impact assessments for major decisions or shifts.
• Ensure “red is good” mindset by promoting transparency and proactive problem solving.
• Standardization and Process Excellence
• Develop templates, checklists, and playbooks to drive consistent and high-quality deliverables across initiatives.
• Coach teams on agile ways of working, including iterative planning and testing to ensure initiatives are ready for deployment at the café level.
• Ensure pre-deployment readiness checklists, including training materials, technology updates, and field communications are in place
• Pressure-test initiatives through guest journey simulations before rollout.

Key Deliverables:

• Integrated transformation timeline and milestone tracker
• Transformation dashboard and initiative health reports
• Standardized initiative playbook and deployment readiness checklist
• Centralized RAID log and decision tracking system
• Meeting cadences, agendas, and governance calendar

Qualifications (Education & Experience)

• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Operations, Project Management, or related field (MBA preferred).
• 5+ years of experience in project management, transformation, or operations roles, ideally in restaurant, retail, or hospitality industries.
• Proven track record managing complex, cross-functional initiatives in a matrixed environment.
• Strong understanding of café operations and franchise models preferred.

Skills & Competencies

• Proficiency in project management tools (e.g., Asana, Jira, Smartsheet).
• Strong facilitation, organizational, and communication skills.
• Comfort working with executives and field teams, translating between strategy and execution.
• Ability to manage competing priorities and deliver results under tight timelines.
• PMP, Agile, or similar certification preferred.
• Ideal team-player qualities:  humble (don’t think less of yourself, think less about yourself than the team success), hungry (to learn, contribute, take on challenges), and people-smart (able to adapt approach& communication depending on audience)

Working Conditions

• 3-4 days in office/week

Physical Requirements

• While performing this job, the incumbent is regularly required to stand, sit, talk, hear & use hands, and fingers to operate keyboards.

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