Director, Construction Administration – Bridges, Highways & Roads

Toronto, ON

WSP is currently seeking a Director, Construction Administration – Bridges Highways & Roads Ontario for our Transportation business line.

This position provides leadership and strategic direction for the Construction Administration division across Ontario. Reporting to the Vice President Bridges Highways & Roads, the Director is responsible for approximately 73 technical staff and revenues of $10.5 million CAD.

The role is primarily responsible for people leadership, financial performance, project delivery, organic growth, client services, safety, and staff performance management for the Construction Administration division across Ontario. This role ensures the coordination of efforts across offices and other business lines, developing plans, programs, and organizational objectives to enhance margins, workforce utilization, and cash generation, enabling the growth of the business and ensuring client satisfaction. All activities are undertaken in support of the WSP Canada strategic plan.

Responsibilities

Accountability and responsibility for the overall performance of the Construction Administration division in Ontario, including meeting established revenue and profitability targets.
Provides effective leadership by inspiring and engaging all managers, project managers, and professional/specialist individual contributor employees towards achieving the short-term and long-term objectives of the business line, as reflected in the WSP Canada strategic plan, business line’s strategic plan, and the division’s operating plan and targets
Manages the implementation of the operating plan and its objectives for the Construction Administration division in Ontario, with primary efforts focused on project delivery excellence, financial performance, and adherence to the business line’s strategic plan and organic growth;
Works and collaborates with Managers as part of the Discipline management team, to establish discipline-specific strategies, budgets, goals, and objectives consistent with, and supportive of, broader Business Line and Corporate strategies.
Senior responsibility for managing and developing employees in accordance with WSP core values, the performance management program and the job architecture and job family structure, including supporting the identification and retention of, and investment in, top talent;
Provides leadership to sustain a culture of continuous improvement and client satisfaction.
Upholds the company’s core values and maintain Health and Safety at the highest level.
Senior responsibility for optimizing the performance of the Construction Administration division in Ontario, including, project margin, staff utilization, DSO, and general administration costs;
Defines contracting strategies, commercial terms, and measures to manage and mitigate risk during key pursuit processes including interacting directly with customers during negotiations;
With support from the corporate legal team, provides guidance and direction to managers to ensure operational and project delivery excellence;
Conducts regular project reviews to ensure budget, schedule, risk, and cost to complete estimates are in order;
Guides and directs project management employees on measures to mitigate project performance issues and risks, ensuring successful delivery on the contractual commitments and financial targets for the project portfolio to meet client expectations and achieve or exceed profitability targets for the business line;
Collaborates closely with the finance, quality, legal/risk, and project delivery shared services to advance project management tools such as project status reports, ensuring the design meets business line requirements and proper deployment and utilization within the business line;
Promotes collaboration within the business line and across offices to ensure effective resource sharing, workload/resource balancing and to bring the best the business line has to bear to meet the needs of clients;
Monitors business development investments to deliver acceptable returns on the investments, aligned with the business line strategy and its backlog and sales targets;
Other duties as assigned/required.

Qualifications

Advanced leadership and communication abilities, notably capable of inspiring, engaging, and influencing a high caliber team to drive a business to higher performance levels and seize the opportunities presented internally and in the market, to the benefit of a wide body of stakeholders (including, but not limited to: clients, employees, shareholders, partners, suppliers, and society at large);
Strong civil engineering professional services business acumen, likely demonstrated through prior successful experience in a large scope civil engineering management role;
10+ years’ experience working in a construction administration and project management capacity on construction administration assignments for public sector clients;
Experience in construction administration for the Ontario Ministry of Transportation (MTO) is considered an asset;
5+ years’ experience managing and mentoring a large team of technical staff;
University degree in Civil Engineering;
Eligible for a Professional Engineer license in Ontario;
Advanced ability to communicate effectively (verbal, written, and executive presentations) with the internal and external clients and stakeholders, and build well-developed teams and positive relationships;
Strong negotiation, communication and customer relationship skills are essential;
Excellent technical, interpersonal and teamwork skills;
The ability to successfully lead with little direction to meet organizational goals;
Experience within an engineering consulting environment (is preferred);

About Us

WSP is one of the world's leading professional services firms. Our purpose is to future proof our cities and environments.

We have over 65,000 team members across the globe. In Canada, our 12,000+ people are involved in everything from environmental remediation to urban planning, from engineering iconic buildings to designing sustainable transportation networks, from finding new ways to extract essential resources to developing renewable power sources for the future.

At WSP:

We value our people and our reputation
We are locally dedicated with international scale
We are future focused and challenge the status quo
We foster collaboration in everything we do
We have an empowering culture and hold ourselves accountable

Please Note:

Health and Safety is a core paramount value of WSP. Given the importance of keeping one another safe it is expected that you comply with our Health, Safety & Environment (HSE) policy at all times as well as client HSE policies when working at client locations.

Offers of employment for safety-sensitive positions involving fieldwork are contingent upon candidates being able to perform key physical tasks of the job as described in the job posting and interview. This may include the ability to work in a variety of environmental conditions, such as remote or isolated areas, working alone, and in inclement weather (within safe and reasonable limits).

WSP welcomes and encourages applications from people with disabilities. Accommodations are available on request for candidates taking part in all aspects of the selection process.

WSP is committed to the principles of employment equity. Only the candidates selected will be contacted.

WSP does not accept unsolicited resumes from agencies. For more information please READ THE FULL POLICY.