Planning Lead

Yondr Group•Aldie, VA

About The Position

Yondr is a global developer, owner operator and service provider of data centers, and is experiencing exponential growth. As the business scales across the Americas, with projects in North Virginia, Dallas, and Toronto, and development opportunities in Phoenix, Albuquerque, and Pennsylvania, Yondr is seeking an experienced and proactive Planning Lead. This role will strengthen planning support across the regional portfolio, ensuring site teams and General Contractors align with Yondr’s Planning Guidance, Project Controls procedures, and high standards of delivery. The Planning Lead will support the successful delivery of complex Data Centre projects from early development through design, procurement, construction, commissioning, and handover. Working client-side, the role will provide planning, scheduling, and project controls expertise to ensure programs are robust, realistic, fully integrated, and aligned with Yondr’s commercial, technical, and operational objectives. This position is central to supporting Yondr’s 2026 business plan and the ambition to deliver 1.6GW of live Data Centre capacity by 2030.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in construction management, engineering, project management, quantity surveying or a related construction discipline.
10+ years’ experience in planning, scheduling or project controls within the data centre industry or a similarly fast-paced construction sector.
Strong client-side planning and project controls experience, ideally representing an owner, developer or end client on major capital projects.
Experience reviewing and challenging General Contractor programmes, including logic, sequencing, critical path, float, constraints and recovery plans.
Proven experience on large-scale mission-critical, data centre, advanced manufacturing, pharmaceutical, semiconductor, infrastructure or complex MEP-led projects.
Strong understanding of design, procurement, construction, commissioning, IST and handover sequencing.
Experience preparing executive-level schedule reports, including milestone tracking, critical path commentary, variance analysis and risk or opportunity summaries.
Ability to lead planning workshops, programme reviews and schedule assurance sessions with contractors, consultants and internal stakeholders.
Knowledge of delay analysis, change control and schedule impact assessment, with the ability to assess programme risk and support mitigation planning.
Experience working with baseline schedules, progress updates, lookaheads, recovery programmes and scenario planning.
Comfortable working in a fast-paced, growing international business with evolving processes and high levels of stakeholder engagement.
Excellent communication skills, with the ability to translate complex programme information into clear, actionable insights for senior stakeholders.
Proficient in Primavera P6, with the ability to build, review, maintain and analyse complex integrated schedules.
Experience with data-led reporting, schedule quality, QSRA and schedule integrity tools such as Power BI, Acumen Fuse, ScheduleReader, Deltek Acumen, Safran, Primavera Risk Analysis or similar.

Nice To Haves

Professional certification or membership such as AACE, PMI-SP, CIOB, RICS, PMP or equivalent would be beneficial but is not essential.

Responsibilities

Develop, maintain and manage integrated master schedules covering design, procurement, enabling works, construction, utilities, commissioning, IST, handover and operational readiness activities.
Review, interrogate and challenge General Contractor and supply chain program to confirm logic, sequencing, scope completeness, critical path integrity and alignment with contractual milestones.
Provide client-side schedule assurance by testing program assumptions, validating progress updates and identifying inconsistencies, gaps or unrealistic forecasts.
Monitor project progress against baseline and current approved schedules, highlighting variances, emerging delays, float erosion and potential impacts to key milestones.
Lead critical path, float, look-ahead, scenario and recovery analysis to support informed decision-making by the client and wider project leadership team.
Support procurement and tender processes by reviewing bidder program, phasing strategies, logistics assumptions and schedule-related submissions.
Work closely with project managers, development managers, design teams, commercial teams, consultants, utilities providers, contractors and operations stakeholders to maintain an accurate view of program performance.
Prepare clear, concise and accurate program reports for internal governance, executive reporting, project reviews and stakeholder updates.
Support risk management activities by identifying schedule risks, assessing potential impacts and developing mitigation or acceleration strategies.
Contribute to change control, delay analysis and schedule impact assessments, ensuring changes are properly evaluated and reflected in program forecasts.
Attend project meetings, planning workshops, contractor reviews and site progress sessions, providing constructive challenge and practical planning guidance.
Promote planning best practice, schedule quality standards and consistent project controls processes across the client’s data center portfolio.