Job Details
Senior Manager Custom Networks Transformation
Lumen is the trusted network for the AI?powered world, connecting people, data, and applications through our expansive fiber network and connected ecosystem. We enable secure, high?performance connectivity across cloud, edge, and AI workloads for enterprises, governments, and communities.
At Lumen, you'll work on infrastructure customers rely on today and build for what's next, where performance, security, and resilience matter.
This is a high accountability environment where bold ideas drive real innovation for our customers, partners, and industry. The work is challenging, expectations are clear, and trust is built into how we operate. If you're ready to take ownership, deliver meaningful impact, and help shape the future of AI?ready connectivity, join us today.
**The Role**
The Senior Manager, Transformation Lead for Custom Networks is responsible for supporting strategic planning, governance, and execution across a portfolio of initiatives that improve operational performance, customer experience, and financial outcomes. This role partners with line leaders and initiative owners to establish a disciplined operating cadence, drive cross-functional alignment, and ensure initiatives are integrated into the broader operating roadmap while delivering measurable value.
**The Main Responsibilities**
**Strategic Planning & Roadmap Integration**
+ Support cross-functional teams through the full lifecycle of transformation initiatives, from idea intake and gating through execution, tracking, and value capture.
+ Maintain and refine the Custom Networks transformation roadmap in partnership with leadership, ensuring alignment to operating priorities, goals, metrics, and customer delivery outcomes.
+ Help ensure initiatives integrate into the broader operating roadmap and are clearly coordinated with deployment, engineering, permitting, project controls, and partner management functions.
**Operating Cadence, Governance, and Execution Leverage**
+ Coordinate the weekly transformation cadence, including leadership reviews, workstream sessions, and escalation paths; ensure the right participants attend and actions are tracked to closure.
+ Serve as a central coordinator for priorities across multiple workstreams, maintaining visibility into what is active, what is next, what is blocked, and where leadership decisions are needed.
+ Apply governance practices that strengthen accountability, transparency, and consistent reporting across the organization.
**Tracking, Reporting, and Value Capture**
+ Operate performance tracking mechanisms, including KPIs, milestone plans, cost/schedule health, risks/issues, and reporting routines to monitor initiative effectiveness and delivery health.
+ Manage gating workflows with stakeholder inputs and approvals to ensure readiness, impacts, dependencies, and decisions are understood before initiatives move forward.
+ Partner with Finance and other stakeholders to support benefits tracking and ensure operational improvements are connected to measurable outcomes such as cost reduction, productivity, cycle time, and customer experience.
**Technology Enablement & Automation (where applicable)**
+ Identify opportunities to leverage automation and technology solutions, including process automation and AI-enabled approaches, to reduce operational friction and improve customer and employee experience.
+ Partner with IT, tool owners, and product teams to document requirements, support solution adoption, and enable scalable process improvements.
**Stakeholder Leadership & Change Enablement**
+ Build and maintain strong relationships with internal stakeholders and cross-functional leaders; foster collaboration and remove barriers to execution.
+ Act as a trusted partner to initiative owners and sponsors by strengthening plans, clarifying actions, identifying risks, and helping move work forward through effective governance.
+ Support a structured approach to organizational change and adoption, reinforcing disciplined execution, transparency, and continuous improvement.
**Risk Assessment & Mitigation**
+ Identify delivery, financial, process, tooling, and adoption risks; coordinate mitigation plans and escalate issues with clear options and recommended next steps.
**What We Look For in a Candidate**
**Required**
+ Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience.
+ 8+ years relevant experience in program/project management, business operations, transformation, governance, or related disciplines.
+ Demonstrated ability to drive cross-functional execution through governance, operating cadence, action tracking, and stakeholder coordination.
+ Strong communication, organization, problem-solving, and influence skills with the ability to engage senior leaders and cross-functional partners.
+ Experience developing clear executive-ready materials, status updates, action logs, and performance reporting.
**Preferred**
+ Agile/Lean-Agile, scaled delivery, and change management experience.
+ Experience with automation, process improvement, and/or technology-enabled transformation.
+ Familiarity with enterprise tool implementation impacts and cross-org integration
**Compensation**
This information reflects the anticipated base salary range for this position based on current national data. Minimums and maximums may vary based on location. Individual pay is based on skills, experience and other relevant factors.
Location Based Pay Ranges
$132,232 - $176,310 in these states: AL AR AZ FL GA IA ID IN KS KY LA ME MO MS MT ND NE NM OH OK PA SC SD TN UT VT WI WV WY
$138,844 - $185,124 in these states: CO HI MI MN NC NH NV OR RI
$145,456 - $193,940 in these states: AK CA CT DC DE IL MA MD NJ NY TX VA WA
Lumen offers a comprehensive package featuring a broad range of Health, Life, Voluntary Lifestyle benefits and other perks that enhance your physical, mental, emotional and financial wellbeing. We're able to answer any additional questions you may have about our bonus structure (short-term incentives, long-term incentives and/or sales compensation) as you move through the selection process.
Learn more about Lumen's:
+ Benefits (https://jobs.lumen.com/global/en/benefits-statement)
+ Bonus Structure
\#LI-Remote
Requisition #: 342740
**Life at Lumen**
Life at Lumen is human and connected, even in a fast moving, AI?focused organization. We set clear expectations and trust people to meet them. With real support and shared accountability, teams collaborate better, move faster, and deliver meaningful outcomes.
Our Lumen 8 behaviors guide how we interact, make decisions, and work together, shaping a culture built to perform and win.
To learn more about Life at Lumen and how we live the Lumen 8, please visit:
https://jobs.lumen.com/global/en/life-at-lumen
**Background Screening**
If you are selected for a position, there will be a background screen, which may include checks for criminal records and/or motor vehicle reports and/or drug screening, depending on the position requirements. For more information on these checks, please refer to the Post Offer section of our FAQ page (https://jobs.lumen.com/global/en/faq) . Job-related concerns identified during the background screening may disqualify you from the new position or your current role. Background results will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.
**Equal Employment Opportunities**
We are committed to providing equal employment opportunities to all persons regardless of race, color, ancestry, citizenship, national origin, religion, veteran status, disability, genetic characteristic or information, age, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, marital status, family status, pregnancy, or other legally protected status (collectively, "protected statuses"). We do not tolerate unlawful discrimination in any employment decisions, including recruiting, hiring, compensation, promotion, benefits, discipline, termination, job assignments or training.
**Privacy Notice**
Lumen is committed to protecting the privacy and security of personal information collected during the recruitment and hiring process. Our Applicant Privacy Notice explains how we collect, use, disclose, and protect applicant information, as well as how individuals may request access to or deletion of their personal data.
To review Lumen's Global Employment Applicant and Talent Community Privacy Notice, please visit:
https://jobs.lumen.com/global/en/privacy-notice
**Disclaimer**
The job responsibilities described above indicate the general nature and level of work performed by employees within this classification. It is not intended to include a comprehensive inventory of all duties and responsibilities for this job. Job duties and responsibilities are subject to change based on evolving business needs and conditions.
In any materials you submit, you may redact or remove age-identifying information such as age, date of birth, or dates of school attendance or graduation. You will not be penalized for redacting or removing this information.
Please be advised that Lumen does not require any form of payment from job applicants during the recruitment process. All legitimate job openings will be posted on our official website or communicated through official company email addresses. If you encounter any job offers that request payment in exchange for employment at Lumen, they are not for employment with us, but may relate to another company with a similar name.
At Lumen, you'll work on infrastructure customers rely on today and build for what's next, where performance, security, and resilience matter.
This is a high accountability environment where bold ideas drive real innovation for our customers, partners, and industry. The work is challenging, expectations are clear, and trust is built into how we operate. If you're ready to take ownership, deliver meaningful impact, and help shape the future of AI?ready connectivity, join us today.
**The Role**
The Senior Manager, Transformation Lead for Custom Networks is responsible for supporting strategic planning, governance, and execution across a portfolio of initiatives that improve operational performance, customer experience, and financial outcomes. This role partners with line leaders and initiative owners to establish a disciplined operating cadence, drive cross-functional alignment, and ensure initiatives are integrated into the broader operating roadmap while delivering measurable value.
**The Main Responsibilities**
**Strategic Planning & Roadmap Integration**
+ Support cross-functional teams through the full lifecycle of transformation initiatives, from idea intake and gating through execution, tracking, and value capture.
+ Maintain and refine the Custom Networks transformation roadmap in partnership with leadership, ensuring alignment to operating priorities, goals, metrics, and customer delivery outcomes.
+ Help ensure initiatives integrate into the broader operating roadmap and are clearly coordinated with deployment, engineering, permitting, project controls, and partner management functions.
**Operating Cadence, Governance, and Execution Leverage**
+ Coordinate the weekly transformation cadence, including leadership reviews, workstream sessions, and escalation paths; ensure the right participants attend and actions are tracked to closure.
+ Serve as a central coordinator for priorities across multiple workstreams, maintaining visibility into what is active, what is next, what is blocked, and where leadership decisions are needed.
+ Apply governance practices that strengthen accountability, transparency, and consistent reporting across the organization.
**Tracking, Reporting, and Value Capture**
+ Operate performance tracking mechanisms, including KPIs, milestone plans, cost/schedule health, risks/issues, and reporting routines to monitor initiative effectiveness and delivery health.
+ Manage gating workflows with stakeholder inputs and approvals to ensure readiness, impacts, dependencies, and decisions are understood before initiatives move forward.
+ Partner with Finance and other stakeholders to support benefits tracking and ensure operational improvements are connected to measurable outcomes such as cost reduction, productivity, cycle time, and customer experience.
**Technology Enablement & Automation (where applicable)**
+ Identify opportunities to leverage automation and technology solutions, including process automation and AI-enabled approaches, to reduce operational friction and improve customer and employee experience.
+ Partner with IT, tool owners, and product teams to document requirements, support solution adoption, and enable scalable process improvements.
**Stakeholder Leadership & Change Enablement**
+ Build and maintain strong relationships with internal stakeholders and cross-functional leaders; foster collaboration and remove barriers to execution.
+ Act as a trusted partner to initiative owners and sponsors by strengthening plans, clarifying actions, identifying risks, and helping move work forward through effective governance.
+ Support a structured approach to organizational change and adoption, reinforcing disciplined execution, transparency, and continuous improvement.
**Risk Assessment & Mitigation**
+ Identify delivery, financial, process, tooling, and adoption risks; coordinate mitigation plans and escalate issues with clear options and recommended next steps.
**What We Look For in a Candidate**
**Required**
+ Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience.
+ 8+ years relevant experience in program/project management, business operations, transformation, governance, or related disciplines.
+ Demonstrated ability to drive cross-functional execution through governance, operating cadence, action tracking, and stakeholder coordination.
+ Strong communication, organization, problem-solving, and influence skills with the ability to engage senior leaders and cross-functional partners.
+ Experience developing clear executive-ready materials, status updates, action logs, and performance reporting.
**Preferred**
+ Agile/Lean-Agile, scaled delivery, and change management experience.
+ Experience with automation, process improvement, and/or technology-enabled transformation.
+ Familiarity with enterprise tool implementation impacts and cross-org integration
**Compensation**
This information reflects the anticipated base salary range for this position based on current national data. Minimums and maximums may vary based on location. Individual pay is based on skills, experience and other relevant factors.
Location Based Pay Ranges
$132,232 - $176,310 in these states: AL AR AZ FL GA IA ID IN KS KY LA ME MO MS MT ND NE NM OH OK PA SC SD TN UT VT WI WV WY
$138,844 - $185,124 in these states: CO HI MI MN NC NH NV OR RI
$145,456 - $193,940 in these states: AK CA CT DC DE IL MA MD NJ NY TX VA WA
Lumen offers a comprehensive package featuring a broad range of Health, Life, Voluntary Lifestyle benefits and other perks that enhance your physical, mental, emotional and financial wellbeing. We're able to answer any additional questions you may have about our bonus structure (short-term incentives, long-term incentives and/or sales compensation) as you move through the selection process.
Learn more about Lumen's:
+ Benefits (https://jobs.lumen.com/global/en/benefits-statement)
+ Bonus Structure
\#LI-Remote
Requisition #: 342740
**Life at Lumen**
Life at Lumen is human and connected, even in a fast moving, AI?focused organization. We set clear expectations and trust people to meet them. With real support and shared accountability, teams collaborate better, move faster, and deliver meaningful outcomes.
Our Lumen 8 behaviors guide how we interact, make decisions, and work together, shaping a culture built to perform and win.
To learn more about Life at Lumen and how we live the Lumen 8, please visit:
https://jobs.lumen.com/global/en/life-at-lumen
**Background Screening**
If you are selected for a position, there will be a background screen, which may include checks for criminal records and/or motor vehicle reports and/or drug screening, depending on the position requirements. For more information on these checks, please refer to the Post Offer section of our FAQ page (https://jobs.lumen.com/global/en/faq) . Job-related concerns identified during the background screening may disqualify you from the new position or your current role. Background results will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.
**Equal Employment Opportunities**
We are committed to providing equal employment opportunities to all persons regardless of race, color, ancestry, citizenship, national origin, religion, veteran status, disability, genetic characteristic or information, age, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, marital status, family status, pregnancy, or other legally protected status (collectively, "protected statuses"). We do not tolerate unlawful discrimination in any employment decisions, including recruiting, hiring, compensation, promotion, benefits, discipline, termination, job assignments or training.
**Privacy Notice**
Lumen is committed to protecting the privacy and security of personal information collected during the recruitment and hiring process. Our Applicant Privacy Notice explains how we collect, use, disclose, and protect applicant information, as well as how individuals may request access to or deletion of their personal data.
To review Lumen's Global Employment Applicant and Talent Community Privacy Notice, please visit:
https://jobs.lumen.com/global/en/privacy-notice
**Disclaimer**
The job responsibilities described above indicate the general nature and level of work performed by employees within this classification. It is not intended to include a comprehensive inventory of all duties and responsibilities for this job. Job duties and responsibilities are subject to change based on evolving business needs and conditions.
In any materials you submit, you may redact or remove age-identifying information such as age, date of birth, or dates of school attendance or graduation. You will not be penalized for redacting or removing this information.
Please be advised that Lumen does not require any form of payment from job applicants during the recruitment process. All legitimate job openings will be posted on our official website or communicated through official company email addresses. If you encounter any job offers that request payment in exchange for employment at Lumen, they are not for employment with us, but may relate to another company with a similar name.
Job #NLX294551580