Associate Director - Major Projects Advisory - Procurement & Commercial Strategy - Market Shaping

The Team

KPMG’s Major Projects Advisory (MPA) team works with industry-leading organisations, helping to solve some of the biggest challenges in infrastructure. As a true market leader, we boast an impressive client base across the commercial and public sectors, delivering lasting results on projects and programmes which are household names.

We focus on providing clarity to Boards, Executives and SROs (Senior Responsible Owner) at major public and private sector organisations, on the delivery of their projects and programmes. We work on some of the UK’s most strategically important programmes, and across all infrastructure sectors including transport, natural resources, energy, power and utilities, corporates, oil & gas, defence, health, housing & education.

Our team comprises specialists with deep construction industry experience, from working for project owners, contractors, engineering consultants and others in the UK and overseas.

On the back of continuing growth, we are once again investing in our team and boosting our numbers, which means you will be joining one of the fastest growing areas of the firm at a time of real significance.

The Role

This role is for an innovative professional at associate director level with strong major project and programme experience. This role will work alongside our existing team to use their lived experience of the full project and programme lifecycle in the construction industry and a blended procurement, commercial, engineering, delivery, and supply-chain acumen to solve complex problems.

You will be providing advice to a broad range of clients on many different matters, helping them to achieve successful outcomes through planning and implementing innovative and robust procurement and commercial interventions.

The MPA team in the UK are based in London, Birmingham, and Manchester. This role will be based in one of these locations but will require travel to client locations throughout the UK and occasionally overseas.

The Person

This role is ideally suited to those with significant post-qualification experience in commercial or programme management with a strong wider working knowledge of engineering, design, delivery, and construction supply chains. This experience will have been gained on very high-value, complex major projects and programmes. The role requires experience with the following attributes:

• An excellent understanding of the construction market and project contexts, across the whole lifecycle of an asset
• Experience in developing and implementing procurement, supply chain and market management initiatives such as procurement strategies, alliancing agreements, market analysis, and modern methods of construction enablement
• A robust understanding of procurement law and regulations, with a demonstrable interest and understanding of procurement implications because of the UK’s exit from the European Union
• Familiarity with industry-standard contract forms such as the NEC suite and PPC2000 and a working understanding of contract law
• A good understanding of issues which impact project performance
• An ability to assess new situations and data quickly to provide a basis for developing an understanding of causal factors
• Ability to set out a clear approach to tackling a new challenge in the most efficient manner
• Clear, concise, fact-based reporting
• A relevant professional qualification, such as MCIPS or MRICS

In addition to the above, experience in some of the following areas would also be of benefit to the candidate in the environment that we work in:

• Project / programme management
• Project / programme controls
• Engineering or Design
• Earned value management
• Cost management, estimating and benchmarking
• Risk management
• Claims, disputes, and dispute avoidance
• Governance and control of projects
   

The role will also include the end to end lifecycle of managing client engagements, using KPMG systems, for which comprehensive training is provided):

• Management of project teams to deliver client engagements
• Financial management of engagements including budgeting, reporting, and invoicing processes
• Performance management and mentoring of junior employees

• The role will be client facing and have direct impact on the reputation and perception of KPMG

In addition to the technical requirements of the role we also expect the right candidate to:

• Be capable of working alone or within a team, including quickly building rapport and delivering with new teams
• Provide clear and concise advice to clients and manage client relationships
• Maintain your requirements for continuing professional development
• Play a key role in business development and team strategy development/implementation