Senior Data Center Project Manager, Special Projects (Nashville, TN)

Description

As Senior Project Manager, Special Projects , you will independently coordinate and drive construction-focused data center projects and complex workstreams across remediation, retrofit, expansion, and infrastructure improvement programs. You will provide structured project leadership across schedules, risks, dependencies, documentation, stakeholder alignment, and operational readiness to ensure projects are delivered safely, predictably, and with clear accountability.

You will partner closely with project managers, construction managers, engineering teams, commissioning partners, site operations, procurement, vendors, contractors, and technical SMEs. At this level, you are expected to operate with a high degree of autonomy, anticipate project risks, resolve coordination challenges, influence cross-functional stakeholders, and establish scalable project controls and execution practices across multiple concurrent initiatives.

Key Responsibilities

• Independently coordinate complex Special Projects construction activities across multiple sites, projects, or interconnected workstreams.

• Own and maintain integrated project controls, including schedules, milestone plans, action registers, risk and issue logs, decision logs, dependency tracking, and project documentation repositories.

• Drive cross-functional project cadence, including planning sessions, readiness reviews, technical coordination meetings, risk reviews, and executive or leadership status updates.

• Identify schedule, scope, dependency, resource, procurement, commissioning, and operational-readiness risks and drive mitigation plans with accountable stakeholders.

• Coordinate critical project deliverables including submittals, RFIs, closeout documentation, commissioning evidence, punch lists, turnover requirements, as-builts, warranties, and operational handoff packages.

• Lead readiness tracking across Construction, Engineering, Operations, Commissioning, Procurement, vendors, and other technical stakeholders to ensure prerequisites and dependencies are resolved before key milestones.

• Develop clear, concise project reporting that communicates milestone health, schedule exposure, critical risks, decisions required, blockers, dependencies, and recovery actions to project and senior leadership.

• Drive accountability for open actions by establishing clear owners, commitments, due dates, escalation paths, and closure criteria.

• Coordinate procurement status, vendor dependencies, logistics, site access, material readiness, site visits, and other execution requirements that could affect project delivery.

• Anticipate cross-functional conflicts and delivery risks, facilitate resolution, and escalate issues with clear impact assessments and recommended actions.

• Ensure project records meet expectations for audit readiness, warranty management, asset onboarding, safety, commissioning, operational acceptance, and long-term documentation integrity.

• Develop and improve standardized project controls, templates, reporting methods, meeting structures, dashboards, and documentation practices that can be adopted across the broader Special Projects organization.

• Analyze recurring execution issues and project trends to identify systemic gaps and recommend improvements to processes, governance, planning, and delivery practices.

• Support or mentor less-experienced project coordinators and team members in project controls, documentation standards, stakeholder management, and execution discipline.

• Manage multiple concurrent projects and priorities with limited supervision while maintaining accurate reporting, timely escalation, and strong stakeholder communication.

• Reinforce safety, security, access-control, change-management, and active-site requirements throughout project planning and execution.

NOTE: This is a full-time onsite role in Nashville, TN.

Responsibilities

Ideal Candidate Profile

• 8+ years of relevant experience in project coordination, project management, construction administration, data center delivery, facilities operations, engineering support, procurement, technical program management, or infrastructure delivery.
• Demonstrated experience independently coordinating complex projects or major workstreams in construction, mission-critical facilities, data centers, utilities, industrial operations, critical manufacturing, or infrastructure environments.
• Experience managing project schedules, risks, dependencies, actions, milestones, documentation, and stakeholder commitments across multiple concurrent projects.
• Demonstrated ability to identify project risks early, assess potential impacts, develop mitigation strategies, and drive issues through resolution.
• Experience coordinating across project managers, construction managers, contractors, vendors, engineering disciplines, commissioning teams, procurement organizations, and site operations.
• Strong ability to synthesize complex technical and project information into concise status reports, risk summaries, decision requests, and leadership communications.
• Demonstrated ability to influence stakeholders and drive accountability without relying on direct reporting authority.
• Experience improving project-management processes, controls, reporting practices, templates, or operating mechanisms across teams or programs.
• Strong judgment, written communication, stakeholder management, and organizational skills, with the ability to operate effectively in ambiguous and rapidly changing project environments.
• Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience in construction management, engineering, business, operations, project management, or a related field.

Skills and Competencies

• Advanced project planning, coordination, and execution discipline across complex, interdependent workstreams.
• Strong ownership mentality with the ability to independently drive projects and issues from identification through closure.
• Ability to recognize schedule, technical, operational, procurement, and execution risks before they materially affect project milestones.
• Strong stakeholder-management and influencing skills across technical, operational, construction, vendor, and leadership organizations.
• Ability to manage competing priorities and dependencies across multiple projects, sites, and stakeholder groups.
• Strong analytical skills with the ability to translate project data into meaningful insights, risks, priorities, and recommended actions.
• Ability to communicate complex technical and project information clearly to both technical teams and senior leadership.
• Strong document-control and project-governance mindset with emphasis on accuracy, traceability, completeness, version control, and auditability.
• Demonstrated ability to establish scalable processes and improve project execution through standardization, lessons learned, and continuous improvement.
• Ability to mentor and provide project execution guidance to less-experienced team members.
• Sound judgment and decision-making skills in active, mission-critical environments where safety, reliability, and operational continuity are essential.

Preferred Skills / Certifications

• Advanced experience with tools such as Smartsheet, MS Project, Primavera P6, Procore, Jira, SharePoint, CMMS platforms, dashboards, or enterprise document-control systems.
• Experience developing or managing integrated schedules, milestone tracking, critical-path dependencies, risk registers, executive dashboards, and portfolio-level reporting.
• Strong familiarity with construction lifecycle processes including design coordination, RFIs, submittals, change management, commissioning, punch lists, O&M documentation, as-builts, warranties, closeout, and turnover.
• PMP, PMI-SP, CCM, OSHA, construction management, project controls, or equivalent professional certification.

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