Director - Project Controls & Pre-Construction

About the role

Ameresco, Inc. (NYSE:AMRC) is a leading energy solutions provider dedicated to helping customers reduce costs, enhance resilience, and decarbonize to net zero in the global energy transition. We are a trusted, full-service partner to public sector and government entities, K-12 schools, higher education, utilities, and healthcare customers across the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and Europe. At Ameresco, we show the way by developing, constructing and operating tailored smart energy efficiency solutions, distributed energy resources, and infrastructure upgrades that drive cost savings, resilience, decarbonization, and innovation. Our comprehensive portfolio is built to address the challenges of today and adapt the future, ensuring long-term sustainability and success for our customers. The Director - Project Controls & Pre-Construction is responsible for leading enterprise execution of project controls and pre-construction functions across Ameresco’s federal project portfolio. This role ensures disciplined planning, estimating, bidding support, cost control, scheduling, and financial reporting to drive successful project outcomes. The Director operates as both a functional leader and a deployable expert, supporting complex or high-risk projects while standardizing processes across estimating, scheduling, and cost management. This position can be based out of our Columbia, MD or Knoxville, TN offices.

Responsibilities

• Pre-Construction, Estimating & Bidding: Lead pre-construction activities, including estimating, bid development, constructability reviews, and procurement strategy. Own the estimating function, ensuring accurate, consistent, and competitive cost estimates. Support bidding and proposal processes, including RFP responses, bid leveling, and pricing validation. Partner with Business Development on pricing strategy and proposal development. Ensure pre-con deliverables (estimates, schedules, risk registers) align with financial and operational goals.
• Project Controls & Scheduling: Lead execution of project controls frameworks, including cost tracking, forecasting, and reporting. Oversee development and maintenance of project schedules and critical path alignment. Ensure consistency in schedule management, milestone tracking, and variance analysis. Drive schedule risk identification and mitigation planning.
• Construction Financial Reporting: Partner with Finance to support construction financial reporting, including: WIP tracking, Cost-to-complete forecasting, Budget vs. actual variance analysis. Ensure alignment between project controls data and financial reporting outputs. Provide regular reporting on project performance to leadership.
• Deployable Project Support: Provide hands-on support to projects experiencing cost, schedule, or planning challenges. Assist in project recovery and performance stabilization.
• Standardization & Continuous Improvement: Standardize estimating templates, scheduling approaches, and reporting structures. Support implementation of tools and systems to enhance efficiency and accuracy.
• Leadership & Collaboration: Mentor project controls, estimating, and scheduling teams. Collaborate with Construction, Engineering, and Finance teams to drive alignment.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Construction Management, or related field.
• Minimum of 10 years of experience in project controls, pre-construction,