SVP, Project Controls

Umbilical Advanced; Virginia (MN); Hybrid; USD 350,000 - 550,000; Full time

Job summary

Umbilical Advanced seeks a founder-level SVP, Project Controls for a global data centers portfolio. You will own the framework, set standards, and drive a system that all regions use to measure capacity, risk, and schedule health.

The role spans governance conversations at the board level and the detail of contingency drawdowns. You’ll build the function, hire where needed, and travel about a third of the time to hubs worldwide.

Qualifications

• Proven track record in creating and enforcing controls standards across regions.
• Experience building a system-of-record for portfolio governance and contingency management.
• Ability to lead multiple directors and align cross-functional teams toward a single framework.

Responsibilities

• Own the framework: breakdown structures, gate criteria, estimating classes, risk standards.
• Land a system-of-record migration and preserve portfolio history during transition.
• Build and lead the function, hiring where needed and coordinating across regions.

Job description

SVP, PROJECT CONTROLS || GLOBAL ||DATA CENTERS

MOST PROJECT CONTROLS LEADERS INHERIT A SYSTEM.

THIS ONE GETS TO DESIGN THE SYSTEM EVERYONE ELSE RUNS.

Picture a global hyperscale portfolio. Gigawatts in delivery across three regions. Dozens of live campuses. The world's largest cloud and AI platforms as customers.

Every region has capable controls teams. What none of them has is one owner of the standard they all work from...

So estimates don't compare campus to campus. Schedule health doesn't roll up cleanly.

Contingency is judged on different bases in different places. And what a finished campus teaches you rarely makes it into the next estimate.

That's the gap. We're retained to find the person who closes it.

SVP, Project Controls | Global | Data Centers

This is a founding seat. And we think that's really exciting!

You'll own the framework. Breakdown structures, gate criteria, estimating classes, quantitative risk standards, the benchmark data that finally shows what capacity really costs, and the portfolio report that reaches the board.

You'll also land a system-of-record migration that's already under way, without losing the portfolio's history.

Six directors report to you, each an expert in their own discipline.

Your job is to make those six functions work as one system. Some of those seats you'll inherit. Some you'll hire. This is a position sutiable for a 'Builder' not a Steward.

Here's what makes it hard, and what makes it worth doing.

Your remit owns the what and the how, and the regions own execution.

You won't have their headcount, and you can't simply mandate adoption.

The standard gets used because it's better than what they had before, and because they helped you build it. You'll be doing all of this while the pipeline keeps delivering.

Who we think this is...

Someone who has built controls standards that held across regions and teams they didn't directly run.

Someone who treats data and platforms as a competitive advantage, not admin.

Someone equally comfortable in a board-level governance conversation and in the detail of a contingency drawdown.

And someone who would rather build the function than maintain one.

Location is flexible across major global hubs, with around a third of your time on the road.