Project Director

Job Summary:

The Project Director serves as the senior delivery leader and primary customer-facing leader for FORTNA’s strategic, high-value accounts (>$60M). This role operates as the “enterprise-level project manager” and trusted advisor to the customer, accountable for the successful execution of automation programs across various U.S. sites. This individual must thrive in a fast-paced, high-demand customer environment, balancing executive stakeholder engagement, multi-site coordination, and internal team leadership to ensure consistent, high-quality delivery. The Project Director is ultimately responsible for aligning customer expectations with operational execution while driving accountability, communication, and results across all workstreams. This is a remote role with significant travel required based on customer and project needs.

Responsibilities:

Customer Leadership & Relationship Management

·Serve as the primary customer-facing leader for a major, high-value project site, ensuring alignment on execution priorities, expectations, risks, and outcomes.

· Build and maintain trusted working relationships with customer project leaders, site leadership, and key stakeholders throughout the project lifecycle.

· Act as the voice of the customer within the project team while maintaining appropriate boundaries, scope discipline, accountability, and commercial alignment.

· Lead regular customer communication, including project updates, issue resolution, escalation management, schedule reviews, and performance discussions.

· Partner with internal leaders to support customer confidence, project transparency, and timely resolution of critical issues. Project Execution & Site Delivery

· Own end-to-end execution of a large, complex customer project site, typically exceeding $60M in value.

· Lead all phases of project delivery from transition out of solution design through installation, commissioning, testing, go-live, and project closeout.

· Manage project scope, budget, schedule, risks, resources, contractual obligations, and customer commitments.

· Coordinate across project managers, engineering, supply chain, manufacturing, installation, software, controls, safety, and commissioning teams to ensure integrated execution.

· Anticipate and proactively address operational, technical, customer, and site-level challenges in a complex, high-visibility environment.

· Ensure successful delivery of integrated solutions, which may include MHE, robotics, controls, WCS/WMS, software, and other automation technologies. Cross-Functional Leadership

· Provide day-to-day leadership to a matrixed project team across multiple functions, disciplines, and workstreams.

· Set clear priorities, expectations, timelines, and accountability across internal and external project stakeholders.

· Drive alignment between project teams, functional leaders, vendors, subcontractors, and customer representatives.

· Mentor and support project managers and site-level leaders to strengthen execution discipline, ownership, and issue resolution.

· Promote a culture of safety, urgency, transparency, collaboration, accountability, and continuous improvement.

Financial, Commercial & Risk Management

· Drive project financial performance through disciplined forecasting, cost management, margin protection, change management, and risk mitigation.

· Monitor project performance against budget, schedule, margin, cash flow, and contractual milestones.

· Identify scope changes, cost risks, schedule impacts, and customer-driven changes; partner with commercial and functional leaders to ensure appropriate documentation and resolution.

· Lead project-level risk mitigation planning and decision-making across complex dependencies and competing priorities.

· Escalate critical risks, trade-offs, and decisions in a timely and fact-based manner. Operational Excellence & Strategic Execution

· Align project execution with customer business objectives, contractual commitments, and FORTNA delivery standards.

· Partner with Sales, Solution Design, Engineering, Delivery, Software, and Operations teams to ensure a seamless transition from design to execution.

· Drive value engineering, cost optimization, schedule recovery, and performance improvements without compromising safety, quality, or customer outcomes.

· Ensure project governance, reporting, documentation, and communication practices support disciplined execution and informed decision-making.

· Apply supply chain automation and large-scale implementation best practices to improve project delivery, customer experience, and business results.

Required Knowledge, Skills, Abilities:

· Demonstrated project leadership experience managing large, complex customer implementations, preferably exceeding $60M in project value.

· Proven ability to lead major site-based project execution in a high-pressure, customer-facing environment.

· Strong experience managing project scope, budget, schedule, risks, resources, contractual obligations, and customer expectations.

· Financial and business acumen, including forecasting, cost control, margin management, change management, and risk mitigation.

· Ability to lead cross-functional, matrixed teams and influence stakeholders without direct authority.

· Strong customer relationship skills with the ability to communicate clearly, manage escalations, and maintain customer confidence.

· Experience coordinating engineering, installation, software, controls, supply chain, manufacturing, commissioning, and project management workstreams.

· Strong problem-solving and decision-making skills with the ability to navigate ambiguity and drive timely resolution.

· Excellent communication skills, including project reporting, stakeholder updates, executive-level summaries, and customer presentations.

· Ability to mentor project managers and site-level leaders while reinforcing accountability and execution discipline.

· Highly proficient in project management tools and Microsoft Office Suite.

Required Education and Experience:

· Bachelor’s or Master’s degree (or international equivalent)

· 8+ years of experience in program management, project delivery, or supply chain/automation leadership

Preferred Education and Experience:

· Experience managing large-scale automation, material handling, or supply chain transformation programs

· PMP® certification

Physical Requirements:

Travel to sites will require time in operational/construction environments and use of PPE as required.

This job description describes the general nature and level of work expected of a person assigned to this position. All job requirements listed indicate the minimum level of knowledge, skills and/or ability deemed necessary to perform the job proficiently. Employees may be required to perform any other job-related duties as requested by their supervisor.

It is the policy of FORTNA and its affiliated companies to provide equal employment opportunity (EEO) to all persons regardless of age, color, national origin, physical or mental disability, race, religion, creed, gender, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression, genetic information, marital status, pregnancy or pregnancy-related condition, status with regard to public assistance, veteran status, citizenship status (if authorized to work in the U.S.), or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local law. In addition, FORTNA will provide reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities.