Senior Manager, Planning & Scheduling

Purpose of the Role

The Senior Manager, Planning & Scheduling is the developer and owner of the scheduling function at Keel Infrastructure. The role stands up centralized schedule management as a service to the business — building the methodology, standards, data, and tooling from the ground up, then running that service across the portfolio. This is a hands-on delivery role for someone who has personally driven projects to completion and wants to build the function, not inherit it.

Key Responsibilities

• Function Development & Centralized Schedule Management
• Establish and own the centralized scheduling function for Keel Infrastructure, defining its scope, service model, and interface with development, project management, project controls, procurement, and finance.
• Set up and manage the plan of record for every project in the portfolio, maintaining schedules centrally rather than leaving them distributed across contractors and project teams.
• Build the scheduling toolset and environment — enterprise structure, EPS/WBS hierarchy, coding dictionaries, calendars, layouts, and security — so schedules roll up cleanly from activity to portfolio level.
• Maintain execution planning alongside scheduling — define the work breakdown and packaging strategy, delivery sequencing logic, and phasing approach for each project before logic is built, so the schedule reflects a deliberate plan rather than a transcription of contractor intent.
• Maintain the multi-year portfolio delivery plan, sequencing projects against capital availability, resource capacity, and utility timing so development and finance plan against a single roadmap.
• Preconstruction & Concept Stage Scheduling
• Develop concept and feasibility-stage schedules for prospective sites, translating limited early information into credible, benchmark-backed duration and milestone assumptions.
• Model entitlement, permitting, utility interconnection, and power energization paths at concept stage, and quantify their impact on ready-for-service dates.
• Support site selection, capital planning, and investment approval with schedule scenarios, comparative site timelines, and sensitivity analysis.
• Delivery Stage Schedule Management
• Own the integrated master schedule through design, procurement, construction, commissioning, and operational turnover, maintaining continuity from the concept-stage baseline.
• Integrate contractor, vendor, A&E, utility, and long-lead equipment schedules into a single program plan, resolving interface conflicts across packages.
• Align the schedule to the commissioning plan and L0–L5 requirements to protect handover dates.
• Process, Procedure & Standards Development
• Author and roll out the scheduling processes, procedures, and templates used across the portfolio — baseline approval, update cycles, progress measurement, change control, and quality gates.
• Define schedule specification requirements for contractor and consultant agreements, then review submissions against those requirements and reject non-conforming schedules.
• Apply structured schedule quality checks (DCMA 14-point or equivalent) as a gate on every baseline and update.
• Database Development & Benchmarking
• Build and own the historical schedule database and WBS structure, capturing actual durations, sequences, productivity rates, and milestone performance from every completed and in-flight project.
• Develop the benchmark set that underpins concept-stage planning: standard durations by scope and package, typical critical path shapes, and realistic ranges rather than single-point assumptions.
• Maintain reference and template schedules for standard data center product types so new projects start from proven logic instead of a blank page.
• Progress Tracking & Performance Measurement
• Own progress measurement across the portfolio: define rules of credit, physical percent complete methodologies, and earned progress curves by package and discipline.
• Produce and interpret performance metrics — SPI, float consumption, critical path movement, milestone slippage, and installation rates — and convert them into recovery recommendations.
• Validate contractor-reported progress against field verification, installed quantities, and commissioning readiness rather than accepting reported percentages at face value.
• Risk, Change & Reporting
• Maintain schedule risk registers and run quantitative schedule risk analysis to size contingency and test milestone confidence levels.
• Assess time impact of change orders, RFIs, design revisions, weather, and utility delays; prepare and review time impact analyses and support delay claim evaluation.
• Enforce schedule change governance so every revision to the plan of record is documented, justified, and traceable.
• Produce portfolio-level schedule dashboards and narrative reporting for project leadership and senior executives.

Requirements

• Experience & Background
• 10+ years of scheduling and project controls experience on large capital construction programs, with demonstrable hands-on project delivery — not reporting-only experience.
• Direct experience building or substantially rebuilding a scheduling function, including the processes, standards, tooling, and data behind it.
• Proven experience developing concept and preconstruction-stage schedules that inform real capital and site selection decisions.
• Experience managing schedules through the full delivery lifecycle to commissioning and turnover, with personal accountability for milestone delivery.
• Track record building or using historical schedule databases and benchmark data to set and defend duration assumptions.
• Data center, mission-critical, hyperscale, HPC, heavy industrial, or utility-scale project experience strongly preferred; owner, developer, or program management side preferred.
• Technical Knowledge
• Expert-level Primavera P6, including enterprise/EPS configuration, multi-project structures, global change, and baseline management; Microsoft Project and Smartsheet preferred.
• Deep command of CPM scheduling theory: logic, float, calendars, constraints, critical and near-critical path analysis, and schedule compression techniques.
• Working knowledge of earned value management, time impact analysis, and quantitative schedule risk analysis (Monte Carlo).
• Data structuring and analytics capability — Power BI, SQL, or equivalent — sufficient to build and query a benchmarking database.
• Understanding data center design and construction: electrical distribution, power systems, mechanical cooling, structural and civil packages, and utility interconnection sequencing.
• Delivery & Competencies
• Builder's mindset — comfortable operating with no existing framework and creating the standard rather than applying someone else's.
• Drives accountability across internal and external teams without formal authority.
• Highly analytical, with the judgment to distinguish reporting noise from real schedule risk.
• Clear written and verbal communication; able to make a complex schedule understandable to non-schedulers.
• Educational Requirements
• Bachelor's degree in Construction Management, Engineering, Architecture, or a related field.
• Professional certifications related to role are preferred.

Work Arrangement

• Location: New York Office
• Schedule: On-site a minimum of three (3) days per week
• Travel: Periodic travel to Keel Infrastructure project sites, vendor facilities, and partner locations as required.