Group Construction Director

Department setting, Hierarchy

The Group Construction Director (further GCD) reports functionally to both Group COO and CEO. Is part of “CTP International”, means supporting all countries within the Group.
Also, it is important to maintain segretagation of duties between operational business and financial control functions, i.e. link to Deputy CFO needs to be kept.
The GCD works on a day-to-day basis with country Construction Directors, Regional Development Directors and project controllers. This structure guarantees the advisory and coordinating nature of the head of Project Control role. He maintains strong working relationships with the local Finance and Construction teams, as well as Procurement/Cost Engineering.

Purpose of the Role and Key Responsibilities

The GCD plays a critical role in ensuring the success of construction projects by supporting local preparation of and advising on controlling of project budgets. This involves both critical assessment of local budget preparation, as well as improving budgeting and cost effectiveness applying and sharing best practices in the group.
The GCD is ultimately responsible for coordinating all project budget requests and ensuring timely and accurate presentation to executive management for approval.
With an in-house team (approx. 5 / quantity surveyors, designers, etc. – locally based, to be established), the GCD will oversee all company developments projects across the region, to be in line with approved budgets.
The GCD is involved / supports in the process of value engineering; realization of the projects itself is however under responsibility of local teams.
In this role it is essential to bring deep understanding of the construction process, cost engineering and budget build-up, and utilization of tools and systems for budget approval and monitoring.
The GCD is accountable for providing reliable data, assessments and ensuring post evaluations of delivered projects continuously lead to new insights and process improvements.

Key responsibilities

– Process owner of Weekly budgets approval process of executive management
– Process owner of weekly purchase orders (PO) approval process of executive management
– CAPEX payments for all countries to be reviewed and approved
– Evaluation of all Valuation consultancies reports that have been processed through PMs/Controllers
– Bi – Annual update of Construction unit cost process
– Keeping overview of Building improvements and Client improvements as part of the construction budget with respect to both costs and revenues
– Cost Value Reconciliation (CVR): Produce and analyse finalized project calculations with comparison to original budget
– Monthly KPI tracker for budgets GLA / Constructions
– CVR’s overviews for major projects presented to executive management
– Overview of cost Risk tracker for special projects
– Support implementation team on construction & controlling processes for implementing D365
– Owner of controllers ERP system parameters
– Approval of revisions / PO’s exceeding managing director thresholds (signing rights)
– Assisting in commercial checks for procurement to ensuring risk mitigation and best value
– Supporting Procurement with suppliers to assist in new technologies that can help efficiency, pricing & ESG requirements on deals
– Random control checks on procurement deals to ensure, robust tenders and compliance has always been met
– Ensuring all countries have sufficient levels of support from project controllers
– Onboarding and training of all new project controllers
– Support country CFO’s in hiring most qualified and experienced project controllers

Furthermore, the GCD in its role works closely with regional Construction Directors, project management teams as well as designers, both in-house as well as external, and suggests on innovations in terms of new materials, designs, or even new property types.

Furthermore, works on improvements – that has to do with refurbishment of projects, aestethics but also functionality and sustainability, hitting the ESG targets and beyond; as well as improvements in order to reduce construction costs, as well as operating costs.

Suports the teams on value engineering and gets involved in some “trouble shooting” discussions, as the case may be, or getting involved when there is a complex project.

Key Succes Factors

The GCD is likely to be succesful in the role when providing expert knowledge and assessment in addition to the capabilities of the country teams, leading to a well thought through and thoroughly prepared budget approval process.
The GCD will need to communicate easily on different levels in the organization, from project management to country management to leadership and deal with different levels of infuence and involvement from all parties.
To run the process of approval as fast and effcient as possible, the GCD needs to take both formal processes and learnings from the past into account, and anticipate on potential issues and unexpected cost and risk.
Internal and External Contacts
Internal: Project Management, Procurment Managers, Project Controllers, Construction Director, Country MD and CFO, Business Control, Group CFO, COO, CEO, Cost engineering, procurment, Head ofFPA/ Business Control
External; suppliers, consultants, contractors

The workplace is in the 10 countries where CTP operates. For now, every Monday in Prague, with 3 days of travel per week to visit the countries. The countries to be visited in particular are Slovakia, Hungary, Austria and Romania, but that will vary, depending on the amount of projects and complexity.
Day or two per week office work. Team members preferably located in countries where CTP have large operations and major land positions.