Project Manager, Higher Education Practice Lead

Overview

The Project Manager and Practice Lead for the Higher Education practice serves as both project team leadership and strategic advisor to enhance our higher education projects. This role requires active engagement in understanding and articulating the forces that shape higher education buildings and campuses. This position will work directly with Partnership, Principals, and other Practice Leaders to successfully manage higher education projects, identify target clients and projects and assist with the direction of business development strategy including market research, create new business development opportunities and actively pursue leads.

Project Management Responsibilities

• Leads the Architectural Project Team through close collaboration with SOM Partners project leadership to achieve design, technical and financial success.
• Prepares, with Leadership input, quality agreements with clients including letters of intent, memoranda of understanding, and professional service agreements.
• Executes additional service agreements and gains authorization by phase.
• Collaborates with Partners and senior team to prepare, issue, and manage compliance plans to align project goals including budget, deliverables and schedule.
• Gains agreement with the senior team for labor allocation.
• Chairs weekly team meetings to address variances from the project plan.
• Administers internal control procedures with Project Accountant including billing, collections, percent complete, expense management, and year-end activities.
• Analyzes project reports and proactively manages the profitability of a project.
• Communicates actively through chairing weekly meetings, issuing meeting minutes and accurate project record keeping and sharing project information and correspondence.

Practice Lead Responsibilities

• Provide guidance to Project Team members in the development, production, promotion, and marketing of SOM’s Higher Education functional market focused on the strategic growth of the practice.
• In collaboration with firm-wide Higher Education Leads, contribute to the creation and implementation of the business development strategy including market research, create new business development opportunities and actively pursue leads.
• Proactively organize and implement engagement strategy based on the Higher Education Business Plan including cultivating relationships between SOM leaders and clients and aligning SOM leaders and appropriate industry organizations.
• Defines appropriate scope of work for Higher Education planning and design projects including review of specialty consultant scope of work.
• Advise Project Teams and clients on best practices, trends and strategies to implement best in class design and planning solutions for teaching and learning environments.
• Participates actively in project design and technical discussions and decision making for educational programs.
• Facilitate integrated, participatory, and data-informed planning and design processes on Higher Education projects.

Leadership Responsibilities

• Actively leads multiple projects and teams.
• Established as a officewide resource in an area of expertise for market, discipline, or department.
• Directly supervises, trains, and mentors team members.
• Engages in talent strategy to find specialists, leaders, and future professionals for the firm through resume review, interviews, and leveraging personal network.
• Demonstrates leadership in the implementation of sustainable strategies in all project assignments and the associated development of staff knowledge.
• Creates and drives new ways of working through contributing to the development of services, standards, procedures based in an understanding of the business principles that protect SOM from financial and legal risk.

Minimum Qualifications

• Significant knowledge and expertise in campus master planning, space programming, stakeholder engagement, and community outreach for Higher Education institutions is required.
• Professional degree in Architecture.
• Licensed in state of practice; LEED accreditation preferred.
• Minimum 10 years of experience or equivalent knowledge, skills and abilities.
• General understanding of sustainable strategies and principles including familiarity with LEED or other green building rating systems.
• Demonstrated ability to successfully lead project teams and manage project schedule, budget and program.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office, Smartsheets, Adobe Suite and Google Workspace.
• Familiarity with Deltek Vision, Salesforce.