Customer Program Manager

Overview:

The Customer Program Manager leads the cross-functional team to develop and launch product and services

Activities:

Responsible for development and launch of a compelling product that meets internal/external customer requirements and promotes customer satisfaction.

To deliver the product in accordance with development milestones into stable production and to meet operating profit over program life. 

Specifics:

• Manage customer interface and direct customer communication strategy with Japan OEMs. 
• Build and manage customer relationships.
• Work with customer interface teams to manage issues.
• Represent product engineering team in new business opportunities by interfacing with core team /customer / sales. Drive business case inputs and product engineering engagement on new technologies.
• Build and maintain a customer interface team – responsible to manage the customer from the entry-level to the senior-level.
• Evaluate and develop team members.
• Ensure product costing targets are achieved for each product. 
• Own and maintain the resource budget and cost of external resources.
• Manage product risk proactively, identify engineering risks and coordinate meetings with the PM and multi-discipline functions to address risks before they become issues.
• Ensure customer requirements are communicated throughout engineering teams. Ensure customer requirements are met with the product designed. Manage customer interface teams to clarify requirements when needed.

• Bachelor of Science in a technical field or equivalent experience.
• Minimum 5 years product development and/or program management experience with specific experience in at least one area of technical specialization, such as: software, hardware, telematics or electronic manufacturing, preferably in an automotive application.
• Developed and launched at least 1 product through the lifecycle from business commitment through stable production.
• Expected general skills includes, but not limited to, cross functional team leadership, arbitrate technical tradeoffs, problem solving, negotiation, P&L understanding and communication skills
• Fluent in English and Japanese (written and verbal)