Project Director

Opportunity

Aecon is seeking a Project Director to join the Urban Transportation Solutions group to support dynamic transit projects in Canada. The role carries overall accountability for project performance across safety, scope, schedule, cost, quality, and stakeholder outcomes in a multi‑party delivery environment with shared decision‑making contractual and governance structures.

• Lead delivery across the full project lifecycle (pursuit through design, construction, systems integration, commissioning, and closeout), ensuring alignment to contract model principles, contractual obligations, and commercial outcomes.
• Act as the primary, senior interface with the Owner and Partners, setting the tone for collaboration, trust, and “best‑for‑project” decision‑making in an open‑book environment.
• Establish and lead the governance framework, including executive leadership alignment, decision‑making protocols, escalation pathways, and integrated team performance across all partners.
• Define and maintain the overall delivery strategy, ensuring alignment between scope, schedule, cost, risk, and stakeholder commitments, while adapting to evolving project conditions.
• Provide executive oversight of cost, schedule, risk, safety, and quality performance, ensuring disciplines are integrated and collectively accountable to target outcomes and KPIs.
• Champion Target Value Delivery, ensuring target cost integrity, gainshare/painshare optimization, value engineering, and disciplined trend management.
• Lead client, stakeholder, and external engagement at the highest level, including transit agencies, municipalities, regulators, Indigenous partners, and community stakeholders.
• Oversee the commercial and contractual framework, including approvals, change strategy, reporting, and alignment to “no disputes / no surprises” principles.
• Ensure effective integration of design, construction, and systems, with early resolution of interfaces and strategic oversight of civil‑to‑systems integration risks.
• Set the tone for project culture, driving transparency, collaboration, inclusion, and high performance across the integrated team.
• Ensure executive‑level reporting, assurance, and governance provide an accurate view of project health, enabling proactive intervention and confidence from the Owner.

• 20+ years of progressive project leadership experience on major infrastructure projects, including at least 5 years in a Project Director (or equivalent) role on transit, rail, or heavy civil programs exceeding $1B.
• Demonstrated experience leading projects across collaborative and contractor‑led delivery models (Alliance, Progressive Design‑Build, Design‑Build, Construction Management, CMGC, or similar).
• Proven success leading projects through the complete lifecycle from pursuit to handover to operations.
• Extensive client‑facing leadership experience as the senior interface with owners, transit agencies, municipal authorities, regulators, utilities, Indigenous communities, and other key stakeholders.
• Strong commercial and contractual acumen, including target cost models, gainshare/painshare mechanisms, change management, commercial negotiations, risk allocation, dispute avoidance/resolution, and contract close‑out.
• Proven ability to establish, lead, and align large, multi‑discipline project organizations with teams of 200+ personnel across engineering, construction, systems, quality, project controls, commercial, and stakeholder functions.
• Direct experience managing joint venture, consortium, or partner relationships, including governance, integrated resourcing, risk sharing, issue resolution, and commercial alignment across partners.
• Strong understanding of how design, construction, civil works, utilities, track, structures, systems, and commissioning interact on major transit and rail programs, including key interface risks, sequencing dependencies, and integrated planning requirements.
• Experience with a variety of project conditions and scopes, including underground, elevated, and at‑grade construction in dense, operational, and urban environments.
• Recognized for building high‑performing, inclusive project cultures grounded…