Director of Construction Project Delivery + Project Management Team Leadership

DEPARTMENT

Construction Operations

REPORTS TO

Ownership / Executive Leadership Team

EMPLOYMENT

Full-time

DIRECT REPORTS

Project Managers and field-support roles, as assigned

LOCATION

Lexington, South Carolina TRAVEL Regular travel to active jobsites

ROLE MISSION

Directly lead Black Walnut's Project Management team and create consistent, accountable project execution across the company. The Director turns company priorities into balanced PM workloads, disciplined financial and schedule control, strong field performance, a professional client experience, and repeatable systems that allow the company to grow without sacrificing quality, profitability, trust, or team sustainability. What Success Looks Like Project Managers know what good looks like, receive useful coaching, and are held accountable for clear project outcomes. The project portfolio is staffed and assigned through a forward-looking weighted-capacity plan that reflects project phase, complexity, geography, and field demands. Leadership has reliable visibility into schedule, gross profit, cost-to-complete, change exposure, client risk, quality, safety, and staffing needs. Problems are resolved at the right level: PMs retain ownership, the Director removes barriers and manages risk, and ownership remains focused on strategic priorities rather than routine project firefighting.

LEADERSHIP 01

Core Responsibilities:

Lead the Team and the Portfolio Project Management Team Leadership Directly manage, coach, develop, and evaluate Project Managers; establish clear role expectations, performance standards, decision rights, and individual development plans. Run effective PM team meetings and one-on-ones that focus on decisions, commitments, risks, development, and follow-through rather than status reporting for its own sake. Create an environment of candid accountability: recognize strong ownership, address performance gaps early, and document coaching or corrective action in partnership with executive leadership. Lead recruiting, selection, onboarding, and succession planning for Project Managers and future Assistant Superintendent / Field Technician roles; recommend hiring, promotion, compensation, and separation decisions within company governance. Weighted Capacity, Assignment, and Staffing Own and continuously refine the weighted-capacity and project-assignment framework for the PM team so it reflects project phase, complexity, geography, role allocation, and field-support needs. Maintain a forward-looking view of capacity, assignments, and hiring needs; rebalance work before multiple projects enter high-demand phases simultaneously. Establish practical workload guidelines, warning indicators, and escalation protocols with executive leadership, then refine them as project and team data mature. Do not allow aggregate team capacity to mask individual overload. Deploy secondary PM support, field support, temporary coverage, sequencing changes, or hiring actions based on the actual constraint. Use active-project count as a complementary planning signal rather than a stand-alone measure, and require deliberate review of stretch assignments. Portfolio Project Health and Financial Control Review every active project's schedule, near-term milestones, procurement, budget, committed cost, forecast, change exposure, quality, safety, client risk, and closeout status on a defined cadence. Hold PMs accountable for accurate cost-to-complete forecasting and timely work-in-progress inputs; challenge optimistic assumptions and ensure projected margin deterioration is visible early. Approve and monitor project recovery plans for material schedule, budget, quality, client, or trade-performance issues within delegated authority. Provide executive leadership with concise portfolio reporting that identifies the decision required, accountable owner, due date, and business impact.

LEADERSHIP 02

Core Responsibilities:

Build a Reliable Delivery System Operating Standards and Process Improvement Establish and continuously improve the project-delivery playbook, including handoff standards, phase gates, planning tools, meeting rhythms, checklists, documentation requirements, and closeout expectations. Ensure systems are practical in the field, consistently used, and scaled to project size and risk; remove unnecessary administrative burden while protecting controls that prevent errors and surprises. Use recurring issues, warranty trends, schedule misses, margin variance, and client feedback to identify root causes and implement durable corrective actions. Quality, Safety, and Field Risk Set the company standard for safe, secure, organized, and professional jobsites and hold PMs and trade partners accountable for compliance. Conduct targeted site visits and project audits at high-risk phases, major milestones, or when performance indicators show drift; verify that corrective actions are closed. Stop work for imminent safety or serious quality risk and ensure significant incidents, failures, and near misses receive appropriate investigation and follow-through. Client, Architect, Trade, and Partner Performance Serve as the senior construction escalation point for clients, architects, engineers, lenders, and key partners; step in early enough to protect trust without displacing the PM's day-to-day ownership. Coach PMs in difficult conversations and reinforce Black Walnut's voice: quietly confident, relational, transparent, candid, and solution-oriented. Develop a reliable trade and supplier bench; use performance feedback, scope clarity, accountability, and relationship management to improve quality, schedule, responsiveness, and value. Protect the brand promise of transparency, expertise, and unreasonable hospitality while maintaining appropriate contractual, financial, and operating boundaries. Cross-Functional Leadership Partner with ownership, operations, finance, estimating, and preconstruction to create clean handoffs, realistic budgets and schedules, timely forecasts, clear priorities, and consistent client commitments. Bring field lessons into estimating, preconstruction, contracting, purchasing, and design coordination so future projects become more predictable and profitable.

ROLE BOUNDARY

The Director leads the project-delivery system rather than routinely serving as the Project Manager for difficult jobs. PMs remain accountable for their projects. The Director sets standards, coaches, audits, allocates resources, resolves organizational barriers, and intervenes directly when risk or escalation warrants it. Direct project assignments, when necessary, should be limited, temporary, approved by ownership, and reflected in the capacity plan.

MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

Operating Cadence

CADENCE REQUIRED FOCUS

Weekly PM team huddle; individual project-health and capacity review; critical decisions, constraints, safety, procurement, and client escalations. Monthly Portfolio financial and forecast review; WIP inputs; PM scorecard review; forward-looking staffing and assignment outlook; trade and warranty trends. Quarterly PM performance and development check-ins; staffing and succession plan; process improvement priorities; trade-partner performance review. At phase gates Handoff, construction start, dry-in / rough-in, finishes, substantial completion, and closeout audits scaled to project risk. Decision Rights Assign and rebalance PM and field-support resources within the approved staffing plan and project commitments. Set and enforce project-management standards, reporting cadence, required controls, and minimum field practices. Stop work for imminent safety or serious quality risk and require corrective action before restart. Approve project recovery plans, trade-performance actions, and operating resources within delegated financial and contractual authority. Participate in and recommend PM hiring, promotion, performance improvement, discipline, and separation decisions; final authority remains with the appropriate executive or ownership body. Escalate major contract exposure, legal disputes, material unbudgeted commitments, client termination risk, licensing issues, insurance claims, or decisions reserved for ownership. Director-Level Escalation Triggers A PM's assigned workload is creating, or is forecast to create, material execution risk without a credible mitigation plan. A project develops material margin, schedule, quality, safety, client, trade, design, or cash-flow risk. Two or more projects compete for the same critical person, trade, equipment, or management attention. An issue is recurring across projects, indicating a system or leadership problem rather than a single-job problem.

LEADERSHIP STANDARD

The Director should make PM performance more consistent and owner involvement more strategic. Success is not measured by how many emergencies the Director personally solves; it is measured by how effectively the team anticipates, owns, and resolves issues within a reliable operating system.

PERFORMANCE + FIT

Performance Scorecard

MEASURE EXPECTED OUTCOME

Portfolio gross profit Projects protect approved margin targets; deterioration is forecast early and recovery actions are credible. Forecast accuracy Cost-to-complete, WIP inputs, risk exposure, and completion outlook are timely, supportable, and increasingly accurate. Schedule reliability Portfolio milestones are achieved or transparently reforecast; chronic causes of delay are corrected. Capacity and staffing PM load is balanced by phase and complexity; overload is resolved before service, safety, quality, or margin declines. Quality, safety, and closeout Preventable defects, repeat punch items, safety issues, and closeout duration trend in the right direction. Client and partner trust Escalations are resolved promptly and professionally; communication protects relationships and repeat/referral opportunity. Team performance PM expectations are clear; accountability, development, retention, cross-coverage, and bench strength improve. Operating-system adoption Handoffs, phase gates, project reviews, documentation, and corrective actions are consistently completed and useful. Qualifications Ten or more years of progressive construction experience, including at least five years leading Project Managers, Superintendents, or comparable project-delivery professionals. Demonstrated success across complex custom residential and/or commercial construction, with strong field credibility and the judgment to operate across different project types and scales. Strong command of project financials, forecasting, gross profit, committed cost, procurement, change management, schedules, risk, quality, safety, and client communication. Proven ability to build operating systems, coach different performance levels, make difficult personnel and project decisions, and communicate clearly with owners and external stakeholders. Proficiency with construction-management software, digital plan review, reporting tools, and spreadsheet-based analysis; bachelor's degree in construction, engineering, business, or a related field is preferred, with equivalent experience valued. Core Leadership Behaviors Field-grounded and financially disciplined; respects both the work and the numbers. Calm, direct, and relational; creates clarity without drama or arrogance. Develops people while holding a high bar; uses coaching and accountability to build durable ownership rather than dependence. Transparent, decisive, systems-minded, and committed to sustainable growth rather than uncontrolled volume.

EARLY PRIORITIES

First 90-Day Outcomes Establish a credible baseline of every active project's financial, schedule, capacity, quality, safety, and client status. Implement the weekly and monthly PM operating cadence, including clear escalation and decision tracking. Confirm individual PM expectations, development priorities, workload, and near-term rebalancing needs. Identify the highest-value process, staffing, and trade-partner improvements and present a prioritized action plan to ownership. Working Conditions This role divides time among office leadership, project reviews, and active jobsites. It requires regional travel, work in varying weather and construction conditions, walking uneven surfaces, climbing stairs or ladders, and use of required personal protective equipment, with or without reasonable accommodation. This description defines the role's primary accountabilities and is not an exhaustive list of every duty. Responsibilities may evolve with business needs. Black Walnut Construction provides equal employment opportunity and reasonable accommodation consistent with applicable law.

Pay:

$100,000.00 - $135,000.00 per year

Benefits:

401(k) 3% Match Company truck Dental insurance Fuel card Health insurance Opportunities for advancement Paid time off Vision insurance

Work Location:

In person