Senior People Programs Manager, Tekion
PMO
$141.7-188.9k
+ Stock options
5 days a week in office (Pleasanton, CA)
Cloud-native platform for the automotive retail industry
Be an early applicant
Cloud-native platform for the automotive retail industry
1001+ employees
Be an early applicant
$141.7-188.9k
+ Stock options
5 days a week in office (Pleasanton, CA)
1001+ employees
Company mission
To build the world's best business applications in the cloud.
Role
Who you are
- 7+ years’ experience in HR program management, People Operations, or similar roles (ideally in a global, growth environment)
- PMP certification of similar strongly preferred
- Strong project management and operating rhythm skills, with a history of delivering large-scale or cross-functional HR initiatives
- Comfort working in remote, distributed teams across U.S. and India, and skilled at asynchronous communication
- Excellent communicator – able to convey complex ideas with clarity, bringing diverse stakeholders along
- Strong analytical mindset: Able to translate data into insights, stories, and actions for People leadership
- A growth mindset with a passion for continuous improvement, operational rigor, and staying on top of best practices in the People/HR Project Management community
- Solution-oriented, highly organized, and thrive in fast-paced, ambiguous environments
- Prior experience supporting People teams in a global tech organization is a plus; knowledge of IPO-readiness/US public company requirements is beneficial
- Collaborative, detail-oriented, and proactive, with commitment to execution excellence
- Hands-on familiarity with tools like MS Planner, SharePoint, Confluence, Slack, Workday. etc
- Interest in leveraging technology, including AI, to drive scale and efficiency in People programs
- Consulting or PMO experience preferred
What the job involves
- Tekion is seeking a Sr. Manager, People Team – Program Management Office (PMO) to be a strategic execution partner for our Chief People Officer (CPO) and global People Leadership Team (PLT). In this role, you will help architect and operationalize high-impact people programs, establishing an operating rhythm that allows Tekion’s People to function effectively as we continue growing in a fast-paced, pre-IPO environment
- This is a critical, execution-heavy role. You will drive the planning, implementation, tracking, and reporting of strategic HR programs; act as a force multiplier for People leadership; and ensure flawless cross-functional execution across global teams. You'll need a combination of program management acumen, analytical strength, and the ability to communicate and drive alignment at all levels
- Establish and lead a Program Management Office (PMO) to track and drive accountability for key people programs and initiatives
- Lead end-to-end project management for cyclical people programs (performance, talent reviews, compensation, onboarding, engagement surveys, and more)
- Develop and maintain PMO tools, templates, milestone tracking, and standard reporting cadences
- Serve as the operational hub and facilitator for cross-functional People projects, ensuring momentum and measurable progress—sometimes serving as the program’s lead—and infusing innovating ideas to engage employees and drive program adoption
- Lead and mentor a small team; build strong relationships across the People Team as well as business stakeholders
- Facilitate and/or serve on key project committees, including the company’s cross-functional AI Committee
- Partner with People leadership and Finance to manage People team budgets and headcount forecasts
- Translate business and HR strategy into detailed operating plans aligned to team goals
- Monitor and report on key people operating metrics to inform strategy and leadership decisions
- Drive the execution of strategic People programs from concept to implementation, managing timelines and stakeholder engagement
- Coordinate the People team’s annual and quarterly planning, operating, and goal-setting processes
- Prepare executive-ready artifacts (dashboards, presentations, progress reports) on People operations
- Build and run a comms engine for the People org—ensuring clarity, consistency, and engagement across distributed teams
- Enable successful rollout and sustained adoption of new programs and technology, partnering across regions
- Facilitate alignment between US and India teams on priorities and project updates
- Spearhead planning and execution of PLT and team offsites to foster alignment, collaboration and bonding
- Provide strategic thought partnership to the CPO and PLT, ensuring alignment on the most critical people and business priorities
- Prepare internal communications, briefing materials, and project updates for People leadership and company-wide programs
- Bring structure to complex cross-functional initiatives, supporting seamless execution across time zones
- Maintain a pulse on organizational feedback, surfacing risks or blockers to leadership with proactive recommendations
- Leverage data and analytics to measure progress, drive accountability, and support People team storytelling
- Event planning and coordination of people team or other related functions
Our take
Car dealerships suffer from an inefficiency problem. The paperwork and administration required to complete a sale requires dealers to manage a disjointed set of various software applications. Tekion is offering an enticing remedy - a cloud-based automative retail system that integrates the various software applications in a single infrastructure.
Competition has been strong, with rivals CDK Global and Reynolds & Reynolds offering a competitive raft of features, and benefitting from strong prior relationships with dealerships.
Tekion, however, has nevertheless secured customers for the software in 28 states - likely in part due to the efficiency of partnering with a single growing service as opposed to a disparate spread. The company is sparking interest from the right places too, with partners including GMC, Chrysler, and Chevrolet.
If the founders can leverage their experience at Tesla in improving efficiency, the system could prove a highly competitive newcomer with real potential for global spread. A reduction in processing time and paperwork is a hard proposition for dealerships to refuse.
Freddie
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
25% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 6 rounds)
Jul 2024
$200m
GROWTH EQUITY VC
Oct 2021
$250m
SERIES D
Total funding: $635.1m
Company benefits
- Competitive compensation and generous stock options
- 100% employer-paid top-of-the-line medical, dental and vision coverage
- Great benefits including unlimited PTO, parental leave and free snacks and beverages
- The opportunity to work with some of the brightest minds from the Silicon Valley’s most dominant and successful companies
- Be part of an early stage, hyper-growth startup with the opportunity to grow and prosper
- Work on the latest and coolest technologies – everything is home-grown and built ground-up
- Dynamic work environment with a strong sense of community and collaboration
- Open and transparent culture that encourages innovation, rewards performance and discourages hierarchy
- Exciting opportunities for career growth and development
Company HQ
Pleasanton, CA
Leadership
Jay Vijayan
(CEO)They started their career at Oracle, where they spent over 7 years in Management before spending 4 at VMware. They then worked at Tesla for 4 years, leaving their position as CIO to found Tekion in February 2016.
Guru Sankararaman
(COO)After working as a Chief Architect at Cisco, they joined Tesla for 4 years. Initially they served as Director of Information Technology and then later became VP of Information Technology. Left this role to co-found Tekion in 2016.
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