Senior Project Manager

A leading New Zealand organisation is seeking an experienced Senior Project Manager to join its Christchurch team. This is an exciting opportunity to take ownership of complex, high-value projects within a highly specialised and technically demanding industry, where project delivery directly supports critical infrastructure and ongoing operational capability.

Working across a complex construction and technology environment, you will be responsible for delivering projects from initial planning and design through to construction, implementation and operational handover. You will work across a broad range of internal and external stakeholders, including technical specialists, engineers, contractors, consultants, government bodies and operational teams.

A key feature of this role is the requirement to deliver projects within live operational environments. The successful candidate will understand the challenges of undertaking significant construction and infrastructure works while maintaining business continuity, managing operational risks and ensuring the safety of people and assets. Experience working in environments where construction or project activity must be carefully coordinated around ongoing operations will be highly sought after.

What you'll do

As a Senior Project Manager, you will oversee the end-to-end delivery of multiple complex projects, ensuring they are delivered safely, efficiently and to the required quality, time and budget requirements.

Your responsibilities will include:

• Lead the initiation, planning, execution, monitoring, control and close-out of multiple complex projects.
• Manage the full project lifecycle, including scope, cost, quality, risk, procurement, resources, communications, reporting and operational handover.
• Coordinate multidisciplinary internal teams and external consultants, contractors and suppliers to ensure successful project delivery.
• Work closely with operational teams to ensure projects can be delivered effectively within live and operational environments, minimising disruption and managing interfaces between construction activity and day-to-day operations.
• Develop and maintain robust project plans, programmes, budgets, risk registers and reporting frameworks.
• Identify, assess and proactively manage project risks, dependencies, constraints and opportunities.
• Build strong relationships with senior stakeholders, technical specialists, contractors, consultants and operational personnel.
• Manage procurement and contractor relationships, ensuring commercial and contractual requirements are effectively managed.
• Provide clear and regular reporting to senior leadership and governance groups, ensuring key decisions, risks and project milestones are well understood.
• Maintain comprehensive project documentation, including meeting records, decisions, approvals, change control and project reporting.
• Ensure projects are delivered in accordance with relevant health, safety, quality and environmental requirements.
• Support continuous improvement across project delivery methodologies, processes and systems.
• Provide guidance and knowledge sharing to other project managers and contribute to the broader capability of the project delivery function.

What you bring

We are looking for an experienced Senior Project Manager who is comfortable operating in complex, technically demanding environments and can bring structure, accountability and strong stakeholder management to challenging projects.

You will ideally bring:

• 10+ years' project management experience, with a strong track record of delivering complex projects within construction, engineering, infrastructure, technology or similarly technical environments.
• Significant experience managing large-scale projects involving multiple disciplines, contractors, consultants and stakeholders.
• Proven experience working within live operational environments is highly sought after. This could include construction, infrastructure, facilities, transport, utilities, industrial, healthcare or other environments where projects must be delivered without compromising ongoing operations.
• Experience managing projects through the full lifecycle, from concept and planning through to delivery and operational handover.
• Strong commercial capability, including experience managing budgets, costs, procurement, contracts, variations and project financial performance.
• A strong understanding of project governance, risk management, health & safety and quality assurance.
• Excellent stakeholder management skills, with the ability to engage effectively with senior leaders, technical specialists, contractors, operational teams and external partners.
• The ability to manage competing priorities and remain calm and solutions-focused in complex or high-pressure environments.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to translate complex project information for a range of audiences.
• A collaborative leadership style, with the ability to bring multidisciplinary teams together around common objectives.
• A relevant tertiary qualification in Engineering, Construction, Project Management, Commerce or a related discipline.
• A recognised project management qualification such as PMP or equivalent would be advantageous.
• Strong proficiency across MS Office and project management systems; experience with enterprise-level project portfolio management tools would be beneficial.

What's next?

If you're an experienced Senior Project Manager looking for your next challenge and have a track record of delivering complex construction, infrastructure, engineering or technical projects, we'd love to hear from you.

Apply today by clicking the link provided, or contact us for a confidential discussion about the opportunity.

Robert Walters endeavours to review all applications in a maximum of five working days. If you have not received correspondence in this timeframe please do not hesitate to contact Joe Walding-Karaitiana on +64 9 374 7351.