Description

The Associate Director will lead, inspire and drive the safe and timely delivery of the Vertical Links Project. This includes championing health, safety, and security, demonstrating Qiddiya values, and ensuring project schedules, budgets, and resources are effectively managed in collaboration with discipline leads, contractors, consultants and stakeholders. The role will drive scope completion to agreed timeframes and budgets, proactively resolve risks and roadblocks, and maintain strong stakeholder engagement.

The position will oversee scope management, constructability, contract alignment, change control, and cross-functional coordination. It includes supporting procurement and commercial teams and implementing best practice project management processes. By aligning delivery with Qiddiya's and TBU strategic objectives, the Associate Director will ensure the project work is completed to the highest standards of safety, quality, and performance.

Roles and Responsibilities

• Drives and leads the health, safety, wellbeing and security culture on the project, empowering the team to operate in line with QIC policies, procedures and TBU objectives. Has the ability to conduct safety investigations, inspections and audits.
• Ensure the TBU Customer Experience strategies are understood, and a 'Customer-first' approach is integrated into all aspects of project planning, decision-making, and delivery.
• Demonstrate and role models leadership behaviors in line with Qiddiya values.
• Motivates and inspires a high-performance culture through clear direction, providing continuous feedback, recognizing and rewarding exceptional performance and fostering an environment of collaboration, innovation and accountability
• Provides visible and inclusive leadership, ensures effective succession planning, explores recruitment and retention strategies, and offers mentoring to both direct reports and the broader TBU.
• Collaborates with other directors, discipline leads and internal stakeholders and is accountable for the development, implementation, monitoring, and reporting of project execution across all functional areas during delivery.
• Prepares and presents strategies (procurement, constructability, logistics, interface etc.) to QIC governance and control committees as required.
• Ensures that project delivery plans, covering all aspects of project preparation, execution, and close-out, are robust, agreed upon, communicated to the team, implemented, and routinely reviewed for suitability.
• Identifies and assesses risks and opportunities, develops and applies appropriate mitigation strategies, and manages them through monthly reviews to confirm their continued validity, the effectiveness of planned mitigations, and to capture any newly emerging risks.
• Manages project delivery by ensuring robust, collaborative, and proactive communication with contractors, consultants and key on-site interfaces, supporting the successful completion of the scope in line with time, cost, HS&E, Quality assurance and other performance objectives.
• Manages all changes related to the delivery of the scope through the defined TBU change management process, including early identification and communication to the line manager.
• Implements and maintains project management processes, tools, and best practices to ensure transparency, information accuracy, standardization, and continuous improvement.
• Leads the procurement process by selecting appropriate contract models, developing comprehensive scopes of work, facilitating effective market engagement, and conducting rigorous reviews to ensure the engagement of suitable contractors and consultants.
• Supports and works effectively with the commercial team to ensure contractual compliance and cost control is maintained to the highest level.
• Leads a broad range of project activities, including meetings, risk and opportunity sessions, value engineering, design reviews, site inspections, consultant and contractor evaluations, documentation reviews, training, executive reporting, contract and claims negotiations, public outreach, and other assigned tasks.
• Maintains awareness of industry trends, regulations, and best practices to continuously enhance project delivery.
• Conducts post-project reviews and retrospectives to capture lessons learned and identify opportunities for improvement, contributing to QIC's continuous learning and organizational development.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in relevant fields such as Civil Engineering, Project Management, Risk Management, Construction Management

• Higher National Diploma: Engineering, Project Management, Construction Management or a related field.

• Project Management Professional (PMP) and other relevant project management and professional engineer accreditation (e.g. Prince2, AgilePM) - Desirable but not mandatory

• 10+ years of experience in project management, leading complex projects from initiation to completion within a contracting or construction environment.

• Proven ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously, effectively controlling scope, schedule, budget, and resources using appropriate digital tools.

• Proactive and delivery-focused, with a strong ability to align stakeholders around a common vision.

• Skilled in mentorship and coaching to support the professional growth of junior colleagues.

• Flexible and adaptable to changing business needs, with the ability to prioritize workloads and meet tight deadlines.

• Strong written and verbal communication skills in English, with proficiency in enterprise-level management software such as Microsoft Project, Primavera, Aconex, or equivalent.

• Experienced in managing teams delivering results in a collaborative, cross-departmental environment.

• Excellent problem-solving, decision-making, and conflict resolution abilities.