Senior Vice President, Director of Project Controls

WSP • Glastonbury, CT

1d • $280,000 - $310,000

About The Position

WSP is seeking a transformational executive to establish and lead a national Project Controls organization supporting projects across the company’s business lines, market sectors, and geographies. The function will provide governance, controls, operational support, and performance insight to strengthen delivery of increasingly complex, multidisciplinary, and high-risk projects, while enabling Project and Program Managers to focus on strategic leadership, client service, and technical execution.

The executive will build the function from its formative stage into an integrated national organization of approximately 200 professionals. The role includes defining the operating model and leadership structure, recruiting and developing the team, launching pilot deployments, building partnerships across the business, and creating a scalable service-delivery model. This enterprise-building role requires moving between strategy and execution, influencing senior stakeholders, establishing organizational credibility, and translating project delivery needs into practical, measurable solutions.

The position provides executive oversight for a consistent suite of project controls and support services spanning the project lifecycle. It partners with business, operational, and financial leadership to improve project delivery and financial performance, and demonstrates the function’s value through improved outcomes and actionable performance insight.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in engineering, construction management, business, finance, project management, or a related discipline.
• 15 years of progressive leadership experience in project controls, program management, project delivery, commercial management, operational excellence, or a closely related function.
• Experience leading large teams through multiple levels of management and across geographically dispersed operations.
• Strong understanding of project governance, cost management, scheduling, forecasting, earned value, risk, change management, contract administration, invoicing, reporting, and project closeout.
• Demonstrated ability to develop operating models, organizational structures, workforce plans, standards, procedures, and performance measures.
• Must be authorized to work in the United States.

Nice To Haves

• Master’s degree in business administration, engineering, construction management, finance, or a related field.
• Professional certification such as PMP, AACE CCP, AACE PSP, PMI-SP, PgMP, or an equivalent industry-recognized credential.
• Experience establishing a shared-services, center-of-excellence, PMO, enterprise project controls, or project performance organization.
• Experience with Power BI, InEight, enterprise financial systems, scheduling platforms, document-management systems, forecasting applications, and integrated project-performance reporting.
• Experience incorporating data analytics, automation, or AI into project-performance processes.
• Familiarity with multiple project delivery models and a broad range of market sectors.

Responsibilities

• Establish the organization’s vision, charter, governance model, structure, operating plan, and service-delivery framework.
• Develop and execute a workforce strategy to grow the organization to approximately 200 staff through recruitment, internal transitions, talent development, and appropriate use of global delivery resources.
• Build the leadership structure, and define roles, responsibilities, competencies, career paths, staffing ratios, and succession plans.
• Recruit, develop, engage, and retain a diverse, high-performing national team.
• Develop responsibility matrices and rules of engagement that clarify ownership, decision rights, escalation paths, and handoffs.
• Define how Project Controls services are requested, prioritized, priced, staffed, deployed, and evaluated.
• Establish interfaces and accountability among Project and Program Managers, Finance, Operations, Commercial Management, project controls, quality, risk, and other enabling functions.
• Coordinate integration of resources, responsibilities, and workflows that may transition from existing functions.
• Lead a phased rollout from strategy and mobilization through pilot deployment, business-line expansion, optimization, and national implementation.
• Manage organizational growth while maintaining quality, consistency, utilization, and responsiveness.
• Establish standardized processes for project setup, forecasting, reporting, contract compliance, milestone tracking, invoicing, risk monitoring, and closeout.
• Create a data-management strategy for reliable project- and portfolio-level decision-making.
• Advance automation and responsible AI-enabled solutions to improve efficiency, data quality, forecasting, and management insight.
• Oversee proposal-phase pricing and project-planning support; project onboarding, WBS/CBS setup, and baseline development; and Project Execution Plan and Project Management Plan support.
• Oversee governance frameworks, RACI development, and action and decision tracking.
• Oversee contract administration and requirements tracking; subconsultant and vendor administration, invoicing, and MWDBE compliance; change-order management; insurance coordination; and audit support.
• Oversee task-level scope, schedule, and budget tracking; earned value; Estimate at Completion and Estimate to Complete tracking; forecasting; margin monitoring; invoicing; and financial-performance visibility.
• Oversee milestone, deliverable, risk, quality, client-feedback, and document-management coordination, as well as reporting, dashboards, project reviews, and management oversight.
• Oversee contract and financial reconciliation, records archiving, lessons learned, and closeout reporting.
• Partner with business, operational, and financial leadership to improve forecasting accuracy, cost visibility, invoicing timeliness, budget monitoring, and action resolution.
• Develop escalation and intervention protocols for projects requiring additional attention.
• Promote proactive management of scope, schedule, cost, risk, change, contracts, subconsultants, and project documentation.
• Demonstrate the measurable value of the function through improved project outcomes and actionable performance insight.

Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision coverage
• Disability and life coverage
• Retirement savings
• Paid sick leave
• Paid vacation or other personal time
• Paid parental leave
• Paid time off for bereavement, voting, and/or attendance at naturalization proceedings

What This Job Offers

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