Julia Manning
Verified Expert in Project Management
Project Manager
Montclair, NJ, United States
Toptal member since April 7, 2022
With 20+ years of leading high-impact programs across Fortune 50 companies like J&J, PepsiCo, and Pfizer, Julia specializes in scaling Agentic AI, LLM platforms, and cloud modernization initiatives that deliver measurable results. She doesn't just manage programs. She builds the delivery systems that make AI actually work at scale.
Project Highlights
Expertise
- Agile Practices
- Agile Program Management
- HIPAA Compliance
- Healthcare Services
- Jira
- Project Management
- Project Management Office (PMO)
- Technical Project Management
Work Experience
Project Manager
HealthPrime
- Led innovative data and AI projects for RCM healthcare clients, focusing on reducing overall licensing costs.
- Managed vendor relationships to ensure compliance with deliverables outlined in the Statement of Work (SOW).
- Collaborated with cross-functional teams to drive project success and enhance client satisfaction.
Agile Program Manager
Anywhere
- Led all Agile ceremonies and sprint planning for the seamless transition from CXOne to Amazon Connect, ensuring timely delivery and minimal disruption.
- Coordinated multiple complex projects, including Amazon Q LLM-Agentic AI, Sentiment Analysis, and Leads Marketing Digital Campaign Tool, achieving key milestones on schedule.
- Facilitated cross-team collaboration and continuous improvement initiatives, resulting in increased team velocity and better alignment with business objectives.
- Managed resource allocation, project budgets, and financial forecasts exceeding $3 million, effectively optimizing resource utilization across 70 skilled team members.
- Implemented Agile best practices, including Scrum, Kanban, and SAFe frameworks, improving project transparency and stakeholder engagement.
- Fostered strong communication channels among technical teams, product owners, and executive stakeholders, enhancing project visibility and decision-making.
- Achieved high client satisfaction levels by delivering innovative AI-driven features and campaign tools that exceeded user expectations.
- Navigated multi-project dependencies, ensuring synchronized releases and avoiding bottlenecks in a dynamic, fast-paced environment.
Project Management Director
ReferUAI
- Authored the enterprise Agile Playbook for ReferUAI, standardizing AI product delivery frameworks, governance, and execution models for Product and Project Managers leading Agentic AI initiatives.
- Launched and scaled cross-functional teams across go-to-market, SEO strategy, and API integrations—accelerating ReferUAI product adoption, market expansion, and capital growth.
- Led and mentored a team of seven Product and Project Managers delivering a high-visibility portfolio of Agentic AI products, driving roadmap execution, release predictability, and measurable business impact.
Delivery Lead
PepsiCo Global - DPS
- Coordinated cross-functional teams to ensure seamless data migration and integration across multiple systems.
- Improved data accuracy and consistency by designing and implementing advanced data validation and cleansing processes.
- Developed detailed project plans, risk mitigation strategies, and stakeholder communication protocols.
- Managed vendor relationships and negotiated contracts to ensure quality and cost-effectiveness.
- Achieved a high customer satisfaction rating by delivering high-quality data solutions aligned with business needs.
- Implemented scalable data pipelines that supported future growth and increased data volume.
Technical Delivery Manager
Perrigo Company - Main
- Cleared FDA approval for $500 million worth of baby formula products by delivering 10 million process improvement projects.
- Rolled out a national training program for change management processes across multiple sites to ensure compliance with the Perrigo Nutrition brand.
- Created a project portfolio and ranking dashboard for project selection in 2025.
Technical Project Manager | Scrum Master
Johnson & Johnson
- Worked as a project manager for the GEN AI migration project. Migrated all data from prem servers to Snowflake cloud servers.
- Collaborated with internal teams, including Product Management and Cloud Operations, to ensure unified customer approaches.
- Led cross-functional teams in the successful implementation of enterprise software solutions.
PMP and Agile Trainer
Certification Academy
- Taught a four-day PMP and Agile bootcamp virtual class to 15 students.
- Received 95% excellent feedback scores from students on overall class.
- Answered students' detailed questions regarding PMP and Agile exams.
Agile Coach | Advisory Role
BD
- Advised the digital marketing team on the new Agile working process.
- Influenced decision-making on adopting Jira, an Agile tool, for the marketing team's Agile process.
- Set up Agile marketing governance, supported Agile tool adoption, and prepared the team to adopt Agile methodology by 75% within three months.
RTE/Technical Project Manager
PepsiCo
- Coached team members individually to understand the Agile ways of working and adhere to Agile manifesto principles completely.
- Collaborated with a team to create an effective team agreement that boosted the team's self-organization skill sets by 50% within three months.
- Taught Microsoft Azure DevOps basics, story splitting, and information radiators to a global team of 40 members with excellent feedback on sessions.
- Planned quarterly PI planning events, supported tech product owners and a development team, and facilitated retrospectives and scrum of scrums.
- Coached IT executive leadership on value mapping in one-on-one sessions to create an environment of learning that allows failure fast to pivot to success.
- Followed up on process improvement items from retrospectives to ensure recommended improvements, increasing team happiness by 60%.
- Oversaw the automation of a website portal and the deployment of 52 existing websites to a new platform.
Senior Agile Delivery Manager
CipherHealth
- Revamped a story point creation process to ensure that added features improved the quality accuracy of estimates by 85%.
- Guided a development and product team to set sprint goals to meet achievement targets sprint over sprint.
- Increased happiness in the Agile process and tooling by 50% in three months.
- Enhanced team delivery on web and data product sprint goals by 110% by collaborating with a PO to ensure sprint reviews and inspections were done on a frequent cadence within four months.
- Oversaw rapid delivery of three products: a nurse rounding mobile app, a modernized patient onboarding tool, and an optimized SMS gateway.
Scrum Master | Agile Coach
Quest Diagnostics
- Collaborated with a PO and team to create value-added business features for the Ancestory.com lab reports.
- Taught team principles of flow and integration automation tools, increasing product deployment from conception to production by 75%.
- Utilized frameworks such as the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), Kanban, Scrum, and provided one-on-one Agile coaching.
- Integrated existing lab report application features into a new platform for resiliency within four months.
Scrum Master
Pfizer
- Worked as a project manager for the GEN AI project for Pfizer. The aim of the project was to feed dossier drug data into the LLM to create a completed submittal of approval of drug data for each country.
- Presented in the agile community of practice on sprint zero best practices and liberating structures. Conducted story mapping workshops for an agile squad to deliver a Pfizer global assistant product, leading to it being delivered three months early.
- Coached and trained three different teams on the purpose of agile scrum events, XP, daily stand-up, sprint planning, sprint review, and sprint retrospectives.
- Assessed the teams' confidence after workshops on agile maturity and noted improvement in agile maturity by 75%.
- Oversaw the delivery of a Pfizer agenda tool, health assessment tool, IBRANCE health mobile app, and Azure DevOps implementation.
Agile Coach | Scrum Master
Johnson & Johnson
- Guided and trained a development team on story creation and functionality within Jira.
- Coached executive leadership, a product owner, and a development team individually to ensure positive outcomes on team collaboration and product development.
- Achieved rapid value realization from zero releases in production to releasing every two weeks.
- Oversaw the delivery of an executive CIO plant and project dashboard that utilizes big data and the configuration and digitization of a manual plant process using Siemens MES.
- Turned around a failing project to a successfully delivered product, presented in increments, and submitted everything within a timely fashion to a product owner.
Agile Project Manager | Agile Coach
Wyndham Destinations
- Delivered the first POC Agile project for a type-ahead-find feature in Google within four months.
- Authored and co-authored ten business cases with budgets from $1.5 million to $10 million.
- Presented the Scrum training process to a global PMO of a team of 30 members.
- Oversaw the creation of the Salesforce sales marketing form and the deployment of the Google type-ahead-find feature.
Senior Project Consultant | Scrum Master
Optum
- Facilitated Agile Scrum team events, including daily standup, sprint planning, and sprint retrospective.
- Delivered eight releases and 32 features in nine months and upgraded the UnitedHealthcare website. I was in charge of reporting and budgeting.
- Delivered a highly complex front end and back end of a web solution that served all UnitedHealthcare COBRA clients.
- Achieved 100% PCI compliance for a Cobra web form and oversaw updates to the platform and integration of databases to collect PCI data within three milliseconds.
Project Manager
Health Care Service Corporation
- Managed a multi-million-dollar strategic program for a major player in the healthcare insurance industry.
- Led custom application and infrastructure projects for a healthcare exchange ERP Oracle CRM application, including claims management system, marketing, communications, and IT Siebel 8.1 upgrade.
- Achieved project success in delivering Siebel 8.1 customer service and sales automation upgrades.
- Managed the Enterprise Marketing Sales – Web Fundamentals program with multiple contractors and a diverse team.
- Facilitated daily stand-ups, trained team members on Agile methodology, and reviewed burndown charts and velocity metrics with the team and management. Introduced Waterfall, SDLC, project management lifecycle, and PMO forecasting.
- Ensured that operational online web enrollment for claim forms was 100% on time, oversaw digital customization of claims, and upgraded the PeopleSoft customer service and market CRM 50% ahead of time.
Project History
Amazon QI AWS Connect Leads Reimagine
- **100% ** — Clients Onboarded
There was a fragmented access and identity model. Also, there was limited observability and a manual configuration for partner program flows. The welcome center routing relied on an external DynamoDB queue-attributes table rather than native AWS Connect tables.
We demonstrated measurable improvements in both operational efficiency and customer experience by the end of Q3. Admins effectively managed agent operations and ensured continuity (dynamic schedule adjustments, improved adherence tracking, and faster decision-making).
We achieved a more secure, scalable platform with reduced manual access management. Safer, faster deployments and cleaner rollbacks for telephony flows. Also, simpler, more reliable routing configuration directly in AWS Connect.
Living with Cancer Mobile App
Managed a team of developers and product designers to create a leading app for cancer patients.
Led a team of developers and designers to create a mobile app. Ibrance treatment combined with a mobile app assists breast cancer patients in managing their overall health and adherence to medication. Trained the team on agile principles, which led to the success of rapid product delivery.
Ancestory.com Health Reports
http://ancestory.comManaged a team of developers that created lab reports for the Ancestory.com project.
Led nine developers in a distributed environment. Facilitated all the agile ceremonies and ensured the team’s happiness. Reported the quick wins and successes and presented them to executive management.
Health Care Service Corporation
Launched and managed several releases for effective processing of healthcare claims.
Managed a team of 20 developers to create the claims processing application. Performed program management for several projects that ensured the integrity of the data of the claims processed was accurate. Managed the vendor relationships to ensure the compliance of vendor artifacts was accepted.
Launching the E-Commerce Portal for PepisCo Websites
Launched an automated web portal site for PepsiCo internal clients and enabled the faster launch of PepsiCo digital campaigns and targeted customer reach.
I mentored and coached three teams at PepsiCo in the web and web3.js digital space bringing 52 sites to production. My team’s feedback, together with my listening skills, helped them come up with solutions to most of their problems.
Education
Master of Science Degree in Business Information Technology
DePaul University - Chicago, IL, USA
Bachelor's Degree in Management Information Systems
DePaul University - Chicago, IL, USA
Certifications
AWS Cloud Technical Accreditation
AWS Training and Certification
Scaled Agile Program Consultant
Scaled Agile
Certified Product Owner
Scrum Alliance
Certified Scrum Foundation Educator
Scrum Alliance
Certified Scrum at Scale Practitioner
Scrum Inc
Agile Certified Coach (ICP-ACC)
ICAgile
PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP)
Project Management Institute
Certified Scrum Professional (CSP)
Scrum Alliance
ITIL Foundation Certification
EXIN
Certified Scrum Master
Scrum Alliance
Certified Scrum Master
Scrum Alliance
Project Management Professional (PMP)
Project Management Institute
Six Sigma Green Belt
MicroTrain
Skills
Tools
Jira, Project Management & Work Tracking Tools, Trello, SQL, Atlassian, Rally, GitHub, GitLab CI/CD, Flow, Lotus Notes, Zoom, MURAL, Cloudera
Paradigms
Agile, Kanban, Scrum, HIPAA Compliance, Agile Project Management, Change Management, DevOps, Agile Product Management, Requirements Analysis, Azure DevOps
Platforms
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Azure, Rovo, Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Industry Expertise
Healthcare, Behavioral Health, Lean Six Sigma
Other
Agile Practices, Agile Program Management, Agile Coaching, Project Management, Agile DevOps, Agile Sprints, Project Management Office (PMO), PMO, Retrospective Techniques, Sprint Planning, Scrumban, Microsoft Teams, Project Management Professional (PMP), PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP), Teaching, IT Project Management, Web Project Management, User Experience (UX), Feature Backlog Prioritization, Web Applications, Requirements, Healthcare Services, IT Projects, Detail-oriented, Enterprise Metrics, Agile Certified Practitioner, Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), Scrum Master, Technical Project Management, Infrastructure, Training, Release Train Engineer (RTE), Hybrid Project Management, Waterfall Methodology, Accounts Receivable, ERP Implementation, Risk Management, PI Planning, Enterprise Project Management, Project Portfolio Management Office (PPMO), Project Review, FDA & EPA Regulations, Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP), Back-end, Budgeting, Strategic Planning, Stakeholder Management, Program Management, Executive Reporting, Data Migration, Life Science, Product Management, Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), Pharmaceuticals, Software Deployment, User Journeys, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Project Management, Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG), Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Delivery, Medical Devices, Medical Software, Healthcare IT, Project Planning, Waterfall, SAFe 6, System Implementation, Learning Management Systems (LMS), Management Consulting, Organizational Effectiveness, Product Consultant, Consulting, Product Roadmaps, Project Scoping, Release Management, Amazon Connect, Amazon Q, Certified ScrumMaster (CSM), Documentation, Project Coordination, Post-merger Integration, Management Consulting, Business Planning, Electronic Health Records (EHR), Software Implementation, SOX Compliance, Cybersecurity, ISO Compliance, GRC, SOC 2, Business Transformation Project Management, Delivery Management, Portfolio Management, Product Requirements Documentation (PRD), Automation, Leadership, IT Deployments, Data Security, Deployment, Ownership, Agile Deployment, Product Launch, IT, Project Management & Delivery, Data Privacy, HIPAA, Digital Health, Clarity PPM, QA Testing, Pharmacovigilance, Cloud, System Integration, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Data Integration, Planview, ServiceNow, Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), OpenAI, Agentic AI, Machine Learning, Biotechnology, Data Product Management, Order to Cash (O2C), Network Security, Microsoft, Teams, Roadmaps, UX Process, Design Sprints, Product Owner, Agile Release Training, Scrum@Scale, ITIL, Project Consultancy, Sprints, Snowflake, Big Data, New Product Rollout, AWS DevOps, AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner, FedRAMP, People Development, People Management, Product Management, Notion, Google CRM, AWS Direct Connect, TypeScript, AWS Cloud Architecture
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