Executive Sponsor Role: 5 Responsibilities

An executive sponsor is a C-level senior executive who oversees a specific project’s life cycle. In some cases, executive sponsors might help with the decision-making and planning process for multiple different projects at the same time. Project sponsorship entails working with managers to ensure they have all the guidance and resources they need to complete an initiative on time with the help of their teams.

Executive sponsors have an mportant role to play in bringing projects to completion. Here are just five of their key responsibilities:

1. 1. Assisting project managers: Executive sponsors operate as general overseers more often than they facilitate the day-to-day execution of tasks. They assist project managers and other leaders within an organization to marshal their own teams, rather than leading the teams themselves. In other words, executive sponsors primarily focus on the big picture, while the managers they oversee implement their visions in a more concrete way.
2. 2. Providing support and resources: Through the course of any initiative, team members will need plenty of support and resources to get the job done. Executive sponsors help assess project risks from the get-go, ensuring everyone has what they need to complete a project in a timely manner. Their mentoring and guidance, along with their ability to communicate directly with executive-level staff about specific needs, is what makes them a valuable asset to teams.
3. 3. Securing funds: To ensure project success, those in the sponsor role work to get buy-in from other executives in the C-suite. They advocate for specific initiatives and projects to ensure they receive enough funding in the company’s overall budget, as well as lobby for additional money if teams need it as projects progress.
4. 4. Setting expectations: Executive sponsors work with managers to establish a project’s goals from the very beginning. This provides a blueprint forward as well as allows for extensive business review criteria at the project’s completion. They also work with their executive-level colleagues to help set their own expectations about what a project is and when to expect its completion.
5. 5. Working with multiple departments: People in executive sponsorship work directly with their own team members most of all, but they also liaise between departments nearly as often. Sponsors facilitate relationships between different teams to ensure everyone has what they need to complete their projects. They also work alongside other executive sponsors to ensure a balance of resources on a general level.

It takes a lot of experience and skills to adequately fill the role of the executive sponsor. Here are a few tips to hit the ground running should you ever take on the position yourself:

• Act as a contributor. While executive sponsors can be authoritative decision makers, they usually defer to project management in terms of how teams will complete tasks in a concrete way. Act as a partner with the managers you oversee rather than as an authoritarian. You will know how to look at the bigger picture with more of an expert eye, but they will have a clearer vision of how to implement your goals on a daily level.
• Build trust. As a project sponsor, work to facilitate trusting relationships with the people you oversee. Empower team members to do what they think is best. Provide clear metrics of success so everyone can feel like they’re on the same page. This helps ensure senior management, middle management, and other staff members all have a clear and honest outlook on what they need to accomplish.
• Enact positive changes. Executive sponsors observe and guide current business processes while also remaining on the lookout for ways to improve these methods in the future. This sort of change management helps teams become even more efficient and effective. Consult the teams you sponsor about whether they think these sorts of changes will prove beneficial before implementing them from the top down.
• Provide guidance. Throughout a project’s life cycle, the project team you oversee will need mentoring and guidance. Work together with these key stakeholders to overcome roadblocks, double down on positive processes, and increase efficiency. Ask for feedback and provide your own.

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