Commercial Director
Location: UK South or Midlands or Manchester | Sector: Rail | Salary: Six figure salary
Description
A leading infrastructure business in the UK have retained our services to recruit a Commercial Director for their Rail division, which focuses on rail systems projects. The role will be responsible for leading their commercial function with a team of Quantity Surveyors and Procurement professionals.
As Commercial Director, you will work closely with the Managing Director Rail and other colleagues on the senior leadership team to manage the commercial performance of all their contracts and projects which make up the c£100m+ annual turnover. You will also contribute to the business growth strategy and tendering, they are seeking to grow to £150m pa in the next three years.
There is a mix of contracts including collaborative alliances and project frameworks, with individual projects typically ranging from £15m to £100m and are often target cost contracts. Most of their contracts are in the UK, with a few international projects.
Their reputation with key clients is very good, and the successful candidate will be actively interested in maintaining collaborative relationships with Network Rail, other rail clients and industry partners.
Responsibilities
- Work closely with the senior leadership team of the division to develop, implement, monitor and review the commercial deliverables in the business.
- Relationship management with Network Rail and other rail clients, as well as JV/enterprise/alliance partners.
- Lead the commercial team to meet objectives and support the achievement of the business financial KPI’s.
- Ensure that effective contract and change management processes are in place and that contracts are being administered in accordance with the contractual requirements and obligations.
- Contract negotiation at bid and financial close with clients.
- Managing sub-contractor contracts.
- Manage governance internally, discussing contract risks with relevant internal stakeholders through during tendering.
- Effectively coach and support the senior commercial staff to enable them to grow and secure the succession of others.
- To support the recruitment and retention of all commercial staff.
- The commercial team is c10 staff, and is growing, this will be a hands-on Commercial leader role and will be personally involved in settling final accounts on major projects.
Requirements
- Hands on commercial leader from a contractor, client or QS firm background.
- Experience of managing a commercial team of QS’ in a capital project environment.
- Sector experience – rail is preferred but other backgrounds will be considered including Nuclear, Power, Highways Water and Oil & Gas.
- Collaborative approach, good leadership and influencing skills.
- NEC contract experience is preferred but not essential.
- Experience of working in a large organisation with strong governance is preferred.
- Strong commercial acumen.
- Flexible to travel to offices and sites across the South and Midlands when required. Our client has many UK offices and this role could be based from their nearest office and partly from home.
Since taking over as the CEO of Crossrail I have put a lot of effort into establishing the right leadership team to complete the project. Newsom Consulting have been a great partner in this work. Together we have worked to assemble a great new team with the right energy and capability for one of the worlds most complex projects.
Jim and team are a real pleasure to work with; responsive and sensitive to our unique circumstances.
CEO, Crossrail
Newsom Consulting are incredibly well connected to the industry and very quickly understand our needs. They take time to understand the role profile, the culture and challenges of the organisation, and then hand-picks the shortlist. This process works really well and saves time and money in the search.
MD, Transport Infrastructure, Amey
We have used Newsom Consulting extensively for a number of years, we have always found them responsive and great to work with. Their understanding of the brief and our business has always resulted in a shortlist and successful candidate that meets our requirements.
Chief Executive, Murphy Group
We recently retained Newsom Consulting to recruit a key strategic Director for BAM Nuttall. It was a very professional service, they fully understood the brief and delivered against it extremely well. They kept us informed throughout the search, providing a really good shortlist of candidates. The shortlist included a consultant’s report on each candidate that was informative, honest, with insightful analysis. Newsom Consulting had their finger on the pulse of what was going on in the market and we got the right candidate out of the process
Managing Director- Transport & Regions, BAM Nuttall
Heathrow have partnered with Newsom Consulting to recruit several key leadership roles for our Expansion team. On each search they have been successful in providing an excellent shortlist from which we have appointed a high-calibre candidate. Jim has worked with Heathrow for a number of years and has developed a good understanding of our business, and we have recently appointed Newsom Consulting as an executive search partner for the Expansion programme.
Expansion Programme Director, Heathrow Airport
UK Parliament retained Newsom Consulting to help us recruit the Managing Director for Strategic Estates. This was a good experience and we were well supported throughout the recruitment process. Newsom provided a great deal of industry specific knowledge. The advice and support at the early stages of the process, and specifically helping us define our candidate spec to get what the business really needed from the hire, was invaluable
Director General (Operations), House of Commons
Exceptional knowledge of the industry and thoroughly professional service.
Managing Director UK Engineering, SYSTRA
We have worked with Newsom Consulting on a number of successful senior searches. They listen carefully to assemble the right brief and have identified strong, well targeted shortlists. Their written documentation on the search and shortlisted candidates is informative and insightful.
Managing Director Rail, WSP
Jim has worked with us to source and secure leading talent for 15 years and his commitment to understand our business needs and proactive nature underpins this successful relationship with Newsom Consulting.
CEO, Steer Davies Gleave
We retained Newsom Consulting to help us find and attract several new Directors for our Public Sector Transport practice. Jim and his team really listened to what we needed, understood our values and the expectations we have for anyone joining our team. They cut to the chase on any thorny issues, which speeded up all our interactions and decision-making. We were able to hire several high-calibre candidates from the search.
Partner & Public Sector Transport Leader, PwC
ACE partnered with Newsom Consulting to assist us in recruiting the newly created position of Director of Communications & Marketing. We were seeking a unique blend of skills and experience, and were very pleased with the selection of candidates on the shortlist and ultimately the chosen candidate we were able to appoint. Jim and the team were enjoyable to work with, they took the stress out of recruitment and provided a personal service and genuinely cared about us finding a good quality candidate with the right culture fit for our organisation
Chief Executive, Association for Consultancy and Engineering (ACE)
ACE retained the services of Newsom Consulting to help us recruit our next CEO. They really listened and took our requests on board, were proactive and pushed the process through efficiently. Their candidate reports and shortlisting process were clear and helpful, with a high calibre of candidates presented, enabling us to hire a great candidate. They made the recruitment process easy for us and were a real pleasure to work with.
Chairperson of the Association for Consultancy and Engineering
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