Senior Divisional Projects Manager

First Quality • Anderson, SC

2d • Hybrid

About The Position

First Quality is a family-owned company with over 35 years of history, operating multiple manufacturing campuses across the U.S. and Canada. We produce personal care and household products and are seeking a Senior Divisional Projects Manager for our Anderson, SC location to support the Tissue Division. This role is crucial for ensuring the effective delivery of major business and capital projects, maintaining process consistency, adhering to standards, and achieving committed results with a life cycle and value-delivery mindset. The project methodology will be tailored to the specific needs of each project, from initiation to closeout and operational handover.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Business, Construction Management, or a related field, or equivalent experience through relevant functional roles with demonstrated application of project management skills and processes.
• Mid- to senior-level project management experience (typically 7–12+ years) owning multi-workstream projects from concept through closeout.
• Demonstrated results managing complex projects from concept to execution with values of >$1MM, including multi-site or multi-asset work.
• Proven delivery of both engineering/capital projects and business-oriented projects (process, systems, commercial, or organizational change).
• Working knowledge of project controls, capital stage-gate or equivalent governance, and common contracting models (including OEM, contractor, EPC/EPCM, T&M, and fixed-price arrangements).
• Demonstrated ability to collaborate and build relationships across operations, engineering, finance, IT, vendors, and senior leadership.
• Capable of building, selling, and aligning areas on strategies and a shared project vision.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, including trade-off judgment across scope, cost, time, risk, and value.
• Financial literacy for CAPEX versus OPEX, forecasts, contingency, commitments, and benefits realization.
• Stakeholder management, conflict resolution, and matrix leadership; communicates clearly with leaders, engineers, operators, technicians and contractors.
• Ability to apply predictive methods (charter, baseline, critical path, change control) and Agile/hybrid methods where they fit.
• Ability to read engineering drawings and technical packages at a management level and know when to engage technical SMEs.
• Change-management awareness so process and system changes are adopted after go-live.
• Proficiency with common project management tools (for example MS Project, Primavera, Smartsheet, or equivalent) and standard collaboration tools.

Nice To Haves

• PMP
• PRINCE2 Foundation/Practitioner
• PMI-ACP
• CSM/PSM
• CompTIA Project+
• Site or safety credentials for field-based CAPEX work.

Responsibilities

• Ensure projects deliver as committed in quality, cost, schedule, safety, and business value, with specific concentration on defined success measures.
• Audit and verify project progress and delivery at defined intervals.
• Initiate work by confirming business needs, expected benefits, constraints, and success criteria with sponsors.
• Develop charters, identify stakeholders across operations, engineering, finance, IT, OEMs, and contractors, and recommend the appropriate project delivery approach.
• Build integrated project execution plans and schedules in coordination with operations and technical leaders, including scope of work, WBS, bidding/quoting, requisitions, contracting strategy, construction/installation, commissioning, cutover, training, and adoption.
• Lead both traditional capital asset projects (facility, equipment, utilities, brownfield modifications, and multi-site asset programs) and business-oriented projects (process improvement, systems implementation, operating-model change, and cross-functional initiatives).
• Interface with engineering teams, project sponsors/requestors, OEMs, contractors, and business stakeholders to deliver work.
• Execute through matrixed teams, coordinating design packages, procurement, construction/installation, and start-up for capital work; coordinate requirements, process design, system delivery, and change management for business work.
• Monitor and control scope, schedule, cost, quality, risk, issues, and benefits against plan.
• Apply project controls appropriate to CAPEX (estimates, commitments, forecasts, change orders, earned value or equivalent, and stage-gate reviews).
• Track and deliver project status updates, bringing forward concerns when a project is at risk or off-track.
• Maintain appropriate user interfaces and governance forums for project visibility, decision logs, and RAID management.
• Support the FQT Engineering Way process for project management and execution, train team members on its application, ensure compliance, and adjust as improvements are identified.
• Apply the same process discipline to business-oriented work for consistent delivery across project types.
• Manage change control, compliance, safety, quality, regulatory, and internal-control requirements throughout the project life cycle.
• Close projects by obtaining acceptance, completing punch-list or hypercare, closing contracts and financials, transferring ownership and knowledge to operations, capturing lessons learned, and handing off benefits tracking.
• Manage and ensure best possible total life-cycle performance and cost of assets from design to decommissioning, including total cost of ownership after handover.
• Provides matrix leadership to project engineers, coordinators, operations partners, and contractor/OEM resources assigned to the project.

Benefits

• Competitive base salary and bonus opportunities
• Paid time off (three-week minimum)
• Medical, dental and vision starting day one
• 401(k) with employer match
• Paid parental leave
• Child and family care assistance (dependent care FSA with employer match up to $3750)
• Bundle of joy benefit (years’ worth of free diapers to all team members with a new baby)
• Tuition assistance
• Wellness program with savings of up to $4,000 per year on insurance premiums

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior