Senior Vice President, Director of Project Controls

WSP•Glastonbury, CT

About The Position

WSP is seeking a transformational executive to establish and lead a Project Controls organization supporting projects across the company’s business lines, market sectors, and geographies. The new function will provide governance, controls, operational support, and performance insight to strengthen project delivery and allow 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 organization of approximately 200 professionals. The role includes defining the operating model, establishing the 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 position requires a leader who can work across strategy and execution, influence senior stakeholders, establish organizational credibility, and translate project delivery needs into practical, measurable solutions. The role provides executive oversight for project controls and support services throughout the project lifecycle, while partnering with business, operational, and financial leaders to improve project forecasting, cost visibility, invoicing timeliness, budget monitoring, and action resolution. The position is based in the United States; no specific workplace arrangement is stated.

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.

Nice To Haves

Master’s degree in business administration, engineering, construction management, finance, or a related field.
Professional certifications such as PMP, AACE CCP, AACE PSP, PMI-SP, PgMP, or an equivalent industry-recognized credential.
Experience establishing a shared-services organization, center of excellence, PMO, enterprise project controls function, 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 vision, charter, governance model, organizational structure, operating plan, and service-delivery framework for the Project Controls organization.
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 organization’s leadership structure, defining roles for business-line leads, functional subject matter experts, project-deployed professionals, and centralized support capabilities.
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 accountability and interfaces 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 into the new organization.
Lead a phased rollout encompassing strategy and mobilization, pilot deployment, business-line expansion, optimization, and national implementation.
Manage organizational growth while maintaining quality, consistency, utilization, and responsiveness.
Standardize 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.
Provide executive oversight for 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 contractual 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; and forecasting, margin monitoring, invoicing, and financial-performance visibility.
Oversee coordination of milestones, deliverables, risks, quality, client feedback, and document management, as well as reporting, dashboarding, 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 function’s measurable value through improved project outcomes and actionable performance insight.

Benefits

Medical coverage
Dental coverage
Vision coverage
Disability coverage
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