Senior Project Manager - Life Sciences

Description

The company runs capital projects for a life sciences client in a cGMP-regulated setting, and this senior project manager role sits inside the client's capital project ecosystem as an embedded service provider.

You will plan, govern, deliver and report several simultaneous projects, including laboratories and environments, operations and manufacturing, and space planning and moves, adds and changes, following the client's capital project delivery practices, steering committee model and the account's Statement of Work, scaled to each project's size and classification.

You will work across senior leadership, SHE, quality, IT, procurement, department managers, facilities, subject matter experts and third-party vendors, so clear and concise communication matters.

Responsibilities

• Lead the project delivery team through every phase while keeping segregation of duties with the client's steering committee and user team lead.
• Set expectations, hold team members and contractors accountable, track performance and develop team skills to keep quality, timeliness and budget on track.
• Solve problems with data and sound decisions, set priorities, and plan, schedule and track projects and staffing so deadlines are met without losing quality.
• Set up and maintain the project execution plan governance structure, delegation of authority and handover strategy, and keep them current with steering committee approval.
• Present cost, schedule, quality, funding and change status to the steering committee as a presenter, not a voting member; issue pre-reads at least two working days ahead, run meeting logistics, and record decisions and actions.
• Support the steering committee cadence of every 4 to 6 weeks as best practice, quarterly at minimum, and before each stage gate, with formally documented nominations and accountabilities.
• Escalate decisions, changes and risks under the delegation of authority and the defined risk tolerance thresholds.
• Deliver projects through the client's stage-gated lifecycle from feasibility through project close-out, meeting the mandatory deliverables at each phase.
• Manage estimate maturity at each stage: ±50% at feasibility, ±20% concept cost estimate at end of conceptual design, and ±10% design cost estimate at end of basic design, up to the approved-for-construction handoff.
• During feasibility and project preparation, produce the required project management deliverables, run the project delivery method selection workshop and recommend the method to the steering committee, complete the pre-funding review, and prepare the funding application with the user team lead.
• Prepare for formal stage-gate reviews, submit all mandatory funding documents in advance, and follow up on and close resulting actions.
• Manage the full lifecycle, including due diligence, programming, design, entitlements, bidding, permitting, procurement, selection of design teams, contractors and vendors, budget, schedule, sustainability and post-construction services.
• Guide the client and service provider teams through design, procurement and construction, and oversee capital improvement programs across multiple sites through local or account-based resources where needed.
• Carry out a formal, documented asset handover to operations and the user team lead, support commissioning, mechanical completion and qualification readiness, and issue the project closure report with final benchmarking, lessons learned and financial close-out.
• Facilitate stakeholder analysis and requirements gathering, and support agreement on the user requirements brief or specification.
• Document in-scope and out-of-scope boundaries, assumptions and constraints.
• Control approved scope through formal change management: keep the change log and change requests, protect approved cost and schedule baselines, reflect change impacts in the forecast final cost, and report change type, quantity and cost, time or quality impact in monthly reporting.
• Build budgets, run RFPs, bidding and estimating, reconcile budget against actuals, and maintain the basis of estimate, applying continuous estimating and target value delivery where cost targets apply.
• Monitor and control project cost in Cora PPM, measure value of work done regularly, keep SAP and Cora aligned through the cost estimating structure and work breakdown structure, manage contingency and undistributed costs, update risk impacts in the forecast final cost and control budgets, and manage the CAPEX funding strategy.
• Own the baselined project master schedule with its basis of schedule and WBS, track performance against the schedule and critical path, build Rules-of-Credit progress measurement into design and construction contracts, and align contractor Level 4+ schedules with the project WBS.
• Run schedule integrity and logic checks, including the DCMA 14-point assessment, manage constraints and interdependencies with other projects, manage and report schedule contingency, and produce look-aheads, variance and progress reports, critical path tracking and milestone reporting.
• Maintain the risk management plan covering why, how, who and when, aligned with the client's risk guideline, ISO 31000 and PMI practice, with a RACI for all risk activities; run the preliminary risk assessment in project preparation and build the first risk register from prior lessons learned.
• Plan and facilitate recurring risk workshops from conceptual design through handover, using document review, questionnaires and expert interviews, and manage attendees and bias to get strong inputs.
• Keep the risk register with cause-risk-impact statements, named owners, response actions and impact windows, and score likelihood and cost, schedule or quality impact against the client's matrix.
• Support qualitative and quantitative risk analysis, including Monte Carlo cost and schedule analysis where the project classification requires it, keep contingency aligned with the register, and escalate against risk tolerance thresholds while pursuing opportunities as well as threats.
• Ensure the SHE management process and SHE requirements are met on assigned projects, plan SHE resources, and complete SHE checklist deliverables with the local SHE expert.
• Establish and run the construction safety framework: nominate a qualified construction safety expert, write the construction safety plan and bid attachments, support contractor safety checks, briefings, inspections and KPI monitoring, and support incident management and the construction safety close-out report.
• Hold a working knowledge of design and construction business practice, contract issues, insurance, labor rates, invoicing, and delivery and compensation methods for a range of building types and mechanical and electrical systems.
• Run project kick-off, work with the project procurement manager on the contracting strategy, procurement tracker and claims process, manage RFPs, bidding, negotiation and selection, approve or recommend awards under the delegation of authority, and maintain the contractor pre-qualification program.
• Identify and map stakeholders from conceptual design, rank them by interest and influence, and keep a current stakeholder communication plan in the project execution plan.
• Write the project controls plan, including the reporting audiences, needs, sources, tools, frequency and detail, and lead regular huddles on schedule, cost, changes and risk.
• Prepare monthly reports in Cora PPM, steering committee updates, phase-end benchmarking and ad hoc reports, present status to senior leaders, and keep complete project documentation for seven years, available to the client on request.
• Deliver in line with the Roche corporate quality system and cGMP and GxP expectations, promote quality first time, coordinate quality assurance representatives for qualification and validation work, and support design qualification, commissioning, IQ/OQ, FAT/SAT, punch list close-out and turnover packages.
• Make sure projects follow the client's delivery guidelines and recommend improvements to project management processes across the account.
• Use Microsoft Project and or Primavera P6, Smartsheet, PDF markup tools such as Bluebeam, Cora PPM and SAP cost interfaces, and Microsoft Office; be familiar with AutoCAD and BIM.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in engineering or construction management.
• 10 or more years of related experience.
• Life sciences experience is required, and construction industry experience is required.
• Experience in life sciences or high-tech manufacturing is strongly preferred.
• Advanced project management skills and an understanding of the project management business.
• Ability to support or lead business development as assigned, with a background in client relations, client management, contract negotiation and consulting.
• Strong analytical skills and the ability to explain analyzed data to clients and the project team.
• Strong working knowledge of architectural and engineering drawings and construction concepts.
• Working knowledge of stage-gated capital delivery frameworks and formal governance, including steering committees and delegation of authority.
• Experience delivering capital projects in cGMP or other regulated environments is strongly preferred.
• Formal risk management training and demonstrated experience running risk workshops, maintaining registers, and applying qualitative and Monte Carlo analysis under ISO 31000 and PMI practice.
• Preferred: PMP, CCM, PMI-RMP or equivalent certification.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills are required.
• Strong desire to take on new challenges with innovative solutions and a can-do attitude.

Conditions

Pay is $123,250.00 to $145,000.00, and the actual offer depends on collective bargaining coverage, the geographic area, local market rates, and the candidate's experience and qualifications.

Pay may also vary with location, hire date, hours worked, job type, business line and collective bargaining agreements.

The company will not pay below minimum wage for this role.

The company is an equal opportunity employer covering all protected groups, including protected veterans and people with disabilities, and does not tolerate discrimination.

For accommodation requests under the ADAAA, call 1-888-365-5406 or email, quoting the job title and location.

Benefits

• Eligible employees can enroll in health, vision and dental insurance, flexible spending accounts, health savings accounts, retirement savings plans, life and disability insurance, and paid and unpaid time away from work.