Sr. Project Lead, Hospitality & Service Experience Operations

The Hospitality & Service Experience (HSE) Team purpose is to grow occasions to care by nourishing Customers with easy and enriching experiences that are unique to CFA. Hospitality and Service Experience is a differentiator for Chick-fil-A in a cluttered industry that is growing with direct and indirect competition, of which Chick-fil-A is experiencing some for the first time. Additional internal and external complexities present new challenges to current hospitality and service models – increase in sales channels, shifts in Team Member behavior norms/desires, increase complexity of team member role, competitor imitation, digital customer expectations and unknown customer of the future. The Hospitality & Service Experience team is a sub-team of the Restaurant Experience group, which is a sub-department of the Marketing department. This role reports to the Principal Team Leader of the Hospitality and Service Experience Operations team. The Hospitality & Service Experience team work spans across 3,100+ domestic Restaurants, including 20+ international Restaurants (2-4 countries), 500 Non-Traditional Restaurants (Licensee formats, food trucks, mobile kitchens) and additional sales channels such as Catering and new concepts (Little Blue Menu). This role will partner across the business including Digital Transformation & Technology, Restaurant Development, Customer Digital Experience, Field Operations, Learning and Development, Corporate Communications and more.

Sr. Project Lead, Operations requires a motivated innovative professional to lead complex projects from development through launch to deliver on HSE goals for OSAT, ACE and Same Store Sales. This individual will also steward Hospitality & Service experience Operations tools & processes ensuring the needs of the Organization are met and remain relevant. The Sr. Project Lead will play a critical role in Chick-fil-A’s ability to execute with excellence and deliver second mile service by supporting HSE work across the team with the most effective and efficient processes, systems, and tools in support of the Sales Channel, Service Enablement & Hospitality teams.

Their work should help Chick-fil-A remain a QSR leader, aggressively pursuing our destination while maintaining our originality and brand health.

Success in the role requires a humble, confident, exceptional communicator with the ability to influence others, make decisions and represent recommendations across multiple levels of the organization. They must be able to lead work while owning their own business responsibilities with excellence, ensuring milestones and deliverables are met. This individual requires a high-level of self-direction and a proactive mindset that can provide innovative solutions. This leader has a thorough knowledge of multiple professional disciplines and can work with wide latitude for unreviewed action or decision on most outcomes.

Our Flexible Future model offers a healthy mix of working in person and virtually, strengthening key elements of the Chick-fil-A culture by fostering collaboration and community.

Day-to-day, this role leads and executes multiple projects across the Hospitality and Service Experience Team to meet business objects on time and on budget. This individual possesses an understanding of business strategies, innovation process, team culture, and works to achieve results. This role is called upon to:

• Develop and execute projects to accelerate speed to market of innovations to the field
• Manage multiple cross-functional project budgets and timelines
• Identifies and influences outcomes within their area of expertise
• Possess in-depth knowledge of HSE tool & processes within a professional discipline

The ideal Sr. Project Lead, Operations has a strong understanding of project management and familiarity with the design thinking process. The position requires the ability to manage assignments and vendor partnerships. The model candidate is self-motivated, a strong communicator and able to lead productively without close supervision and yet excel at being a cross-functional project leader and consensus builder.

This person should have a track record of delivering significant results on time and within budget.

• Proven track record of success in both professional and academic environments
• Strong project management skills with critical attention to detail
• Strong communication and presentation skills
• Strong analytic capabilities
• Strong negotiation and consensus building skills
• Ability to build effective relationships with Chick-fil-A staff, Operators and vendors

Skills and Abilities

• Emotional Intelligence: Ability to listen, learn, empathize and act accordingly to ensure progress is made while also bringing others along with a sense of shared ownership.
• Communication Skills: Ability to tailor message and influence decision-making across a variety of departments and levels. Consistently displays ability to write clearly and succinctly in a variety of communication settings and styles; can get messages across that have the desired effect.
• Planning: Accurately scopes out length and difficulty of tasks and projects; sets objectives and goals; breaks down work into the process steps; develops schedules and task/people assignments; anticipates and adjusts for problems and roadblocks; measures performance against goals; evaluates results.
• Customer Focus: Is dedicated to meeting the expectations and requirements of internal and external customers; gets first-hand customer information and uses it for improvements in products and services; acts with customers in mind; establishes and maintains effective relationships with customers and gains their trust and respect.
• Tenacious: Proven ability to get results through mastering the operation. Acts assertively as an owner of the business with a sense of urgency.
• Prudent: Has experience with financial planning, revenue forecasting, cost optimizing and managing significant budgets
• People: Exhibits strong interpersonal skills that encourage team cooperation, promote enthusiasm and motivate relationship-building. Very well respected by peers, leaders, and Operators.
• Strategic: Relentlessly search for solutions, elements of strategy to tweak, and taste patterns in an audience –finding key learnings for the brand as a result. See the necessity and power of advertising to grow business. And adjust and adopt new practices as needed and quickly.
• Critical Thinking: Critical thinker with proactive problem-solving skills. Displays discernment in decision-making skills and proven track record of balancing what's right for the Customer and the Chick-fil-A brand. Exhausts multiple options before narrowing to one conclusion.
• Versatile and Savvy: Enjoys the blend of being skilled at production, relationships, communication, and innovative thinking; an enthusiastic bridge builder across disciplines, groups and personalities. Consistently displays a range of both technical and creative skills. Proven organizational savviness and fluency, demonstrating strong enterprise thinking.
• Collaborator: Ability to bring diverse groups across internal and external teams together to work across multiple disciplines, and successfully lead those SMEs toward a common outcome with ease. Able to work independently or in a group, adapt to shifting priorities, and enjoy identifying and implementing new initiatives.
• Problem Solving: Uses rigorous logic and methods to solve difficult problems with effective solutions; probes all fruitful sources for answers; can see hidden problems; is excellent at honest analysis; looks beyond the obvious and doesn't stop at the first answer.
• Excellence: Gives personal best every day; demonstrates positive attitude and confidence; sets high standards and meets self-expectations; pursues everything with energy, drive, and a need to finish; is committed to and works actively to growing and developing capabilities and capacity; seeks feedback on performance and acts upon feedback received; practices accountability
• Drive for Results: Can be counted on to exceed goals successfully; is constantly and consistently one of the top performers; very bottom-line oriented; steadfastly pushes self and others for results.

• Bachelor's degree
• Minimum 4 years of professional experience in business industry
• Experience leading and executing multiple projects
• Strong communication, presentation, and project management skills with attention to detail
• Ability to work in a highly collaborative environment within a team approach to accomplishing objectives
• Strong negotiation and consensus building skills
• Ability to build effective relationships with Chick-fil-A staff, Operators and vendors
• Proficient with Microsoft Suite

• MBA or applicable change-management Professional designation
• 6 to 8 years of professional experience
• Business or Operations background
• Graphic design skills
• Project Manager Professional (PMP)
• Continuing education edits and/or professional certifications demonstrating a lifetime-learner
• Proficient with Smartsheet
• Educational excellence, 3.0 GPA preferred