Director, Program Management Office (Engineering and Construction)
Fibre-to-the-Home Build Program | Greater Toronto Area, Ontario
About Our Client:
Internet service provider
The Position & How You Will Contribute:
Our client is looking for a Director, Program Management Office to take the reins of its build program planning. Based in the GTA and reporting to the senior operations leader, you’ll own the integrated plan and reporting rhythm for dozens of fibre projects running at once – design, permitting, construction, inspection, release to market and activation, across many markets and many contractors.
About 80% of the PMO is already in place: the processes, stage-gate governance and tooling were built in-house and work well. What’s missing is a leader with presence and sharp elbows who owns the program, plans ahead and challenges the business. This role gets the program out of firefighting mode and two steps ahead, so the build becomes predictable month after month.
Responsibilities:
Planning & Schedule Ownership
- Own one integrated master schedule for the engineering and construction program at the fibrehood level, from design through release to market.
- Plan two steps ahead: resource and contractor capacity against the build plan, permits and dependencies, so gaps are flagged before they become delays.
- Make monthly output predictable – when the plan says 5,000 homes, the program delivers 5,000.
Program Cadence & Reporting
- Run the program cadence: plan versus actual on homes passed, release to market and cost per home passed, plus risks, issues and the decisions leadership needs to make.
- Deliver bad news early and plainly, and push the people who own delivery to act while problems are still cheap to fix.
- Partner with Finance on forecasts, capital phasing and capitalization timing.
Governance, Tools & Data
- Run and refine the company’s stage-gate program so the business works from one gating language.
- Tune the existing tools rather than rebuild them, including guiding the move of the build schedule from Excel into an in-house application.
- Create a single source of truth for program data and shorten the lag between what happens on site and what leadership sees; use AI tools to work smarter.
- Own change control, risk and issue management, escalation paths and lessons learned; fix recurring causes of delay, rework and cost overrun.
Team Leadership
- Lead a PMO team of four project managers and build it out as the program grows.
About You:
- You are large and in charge: you own the program, take the reins and aren’t afraid to challenge senior people.
- You’re a great planner who lives two steps ahead and is relentlessly results-oriented.
- You’re outgoing and energetic, with the presence to rally contractors, construction and engineering around one plan.
- You’ve led a PMO or multi-project portfolio and still enjoy the hands-on work of scheduling and reporting.
- Industry is open: telecom, utilities or infrastructure are ideal, but a strong PMO leader from another sector (including software) who asks sharp questions and learns the work fast will be considered.
- You’re comfortable with scheduling and reporting tools (MS Project, Primavera P6, Smartsheet, Power BI or similar) and with AI-enabled ways of working.
- You understand budgets, forecasts, earned value and capital versus operating spend.
- PMP or equivalent certification is an asset.
Role Details:
- Compensation: Competitive base plus incentive – open for the right person
- Start date: As soon as possible
Must Have Experience:
- PMO or multi-project portfolio leadership
- Hands-on planning, scheduling and reporting
- Strong presence: takes charge, challenges, plans ahead
- Outgoing and results-oriented
- Telecom / infrastructure ideal; software or other-industry PMO leaders considered
- Comfortable with systems, data and AI tools
- PMP – asset
