Senior Organizational Change Management (OCM) – Higher Education
We are seeking an experienced Senior Organizational Change Management (OCM) Consultant for a Hybrid position with our Sacramento, California client leading change management activities supporting large-scale transformation initiatives within a higher education environment. The ideal candidate is a seasoned OCM professional with exceptional facilitation, communication, stakeholder engagement, and change leadership skills. This individual will work closely with executive leadership, faculty, staff, and cross-functional teams to establish organizational readiness, build stakeholder alignment, and drive successful adoption of new processes and ways of working.
Experience in both higher education and a community college or community college district is required.
Key Responsibilities
<>Organizational Change Management & Strategy
- Develop and execute comprehensive OCM strategies, roadmaps, and adoption plans supporting large-scale organizational transformation.
- Partner with executive leadership to establish transformation objectives, sponsorship, stakeholder ownership, and accountability.
- Conduct organizational readiness assessments, stakeholder analyses, and change impact assessments.
- Identify organizational challenges, resistance, and adoption barriers, developing strategies to address them.
- Integrate OCM activities with project planning, business process improvement, training, and implementation readiness.
<>Facilitation & Stakeholder Engagement
- Lead and facilitate executive workshops, stakeholder meetings, discovery sessions, and cross-functional discussions to build consensus and drive decisions.
- Engage institutional leadership, faculty, administrative staff, and technical teams to support transformation objectives.
- Establish stakeholder engagement strategies and change champion networks to promote organizational alignment.
- Navigate complex stakeholder relationships, competing priorities, and organizational resistance.
<>Communication & Change Adoption
- Develop and execute strategic communication plans that clearly communicate transformation goals, impacts, and expectations.
- Create and deliver executive presentations, leadership briefings, stakeholder updates, and organizational communications.
- Translate complex transformation initiatives into clear, actionable messaging for diverse audiences.
- Collaborate with project and training teams to support organizational transition, knowledge transfer, and adoption.
- Establish change readiness and adoption metrics and provide regular progress updates to leadership.
<>Higher Education Transformation
- Support organizational transformation initiatives across academic and administrative departments.
- Collaborate with Finance, Human Resources, Student Services, Information Technology, and other institutional stakeholders.
- Align change management activities with institutional priorities, governance structures, and operational needs.
- Support transformation efforts involving multiple departments, campuses, and decentralized stakeholder groups.
Requirements
<>Required Skills
- 8+ years of experience leading Organizational Change Management initiatives for large-scale organizational, operational, technology, or business transformations.
- 5+ years of experience developing OCM strategies, stakeholder engagement plans, communication strategies, readiness activities, and adoption plans.
- 5+ years of experience conducting stakeholder analyses, change impact assessments, organizational readiness assessments, and change risk mitigation.
- 5+ years of experience supporting complex transformation initiatives involving multiple departments, business functions, or decentralized stakeholder groups.
- 3+ years of experience partnering with executive leadership to establish sponsorship, accountability, and stakeholder ownership.
- Demonstrated OCM experience within higher education institutions.
- Community college or community college district experience, particularly supporting institutional transformation or organizational change initiatives.
- Exceptional facilitation, presentation, and communication skills, including the ability to lead executive workshops and influence diverse stakeholder groups.
- Strong ability to build consensus, manage resistance, and drive organizational alignment and adoption.
<>Preferred Skills
- Experience within California higher education or public sector organizations.
- Familiarity with higher education governance, institutional operations, and multi-campus environments.
- Experience integrating OCM with business process reengineering (BPR), training, and implementation readiness.
- Experience supporting enterprise technology modernization or ERP implementations (not required).
- Prosci, CCMP, or comparable change management certification.
