Cost Controls Lead

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OVERVIEW
The Cost Controls Lead is a senior, program-level leadership role within the Center of Excellence (COE), responsible for cost governance, estimating rigor, forecasting accuracy, and financial risk visibility across the portfolio. This role leads the Program Estimators team and owns the standards, methodologies, and outputs that ensure cost certainty and predictable outcomes across all authorized service lines.

Reporting directly to the COE Lead, the Cost Controls Lead establishes and enforces estimating standards, maintains program benchmarks and market intelligence, and provides leadership focus on cost performance, recovery, and continuous improvement. The role operates as an enterprise enablement function—supporting early-phase decision-making while maintaining strong discipline through pricing milestones—without assuming day-to-day project cost management or negotiation authority.

JOB SUMMARY/GOALS

This role provides program-wide leadership for cost controls and estimating functions within the COE. Key goals include:

• Own and enforce cost governance, estimating standards, and financial discipline across the program
• Lead and develop the Program Estimators team to deliver consistent, phase-appropriate cost outputs
• Improve cost predictability through benchmarking, analytics, and risk visibility
• Support early-phase decision-making through high-quality estimates and value opportunity insights
• Provide leadership focus to address historical cost challenges and improve portfolio outcomes

Partner closely with Project Delivery Team, Scheduling, Design Enablement, PMO, and Innovation to align cost, schedule, and constructability decisions

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Cost Governance & Estimating Leadership (Program-Level)

• Own program-wide cost controls standards, estimating methodologies, and governance frameworks
• Establish and maintain disciplined estimating practices across scoping, engineered drawing, and final pricing phases
• Ensure consistent application of cost assumptions, exclusions, and risk documentation
• Provide leadership oversight to ensure estimates are complete, defensible, and aligned with approved scope
• Serve as the senior escalation point for cost-related risks, variances, or confidence concerns

Team Leadership & Development

• Lead, mentor, and develop the Program Estimators team
• Set performance expectations, prioritize workload, and ensure consistent quality of deliverables
• Create clear development pathways and growth opportunities for estimating team members
• Promote collaboration between Estimators, Design, Scheduling, and Industrialized Construction teams

Budget Development & Validation

• Oversee development and validation of:
• Scoping budgets
• Engineered Drawing budgets
• Final Pricing budgets
• Validate alignment between scope, quantities, and pricing at defined milestones
• Support bid reviews focused on scope completeness and pricing reasonableness
• Ensure “apples-to-apples” bid comparisons through compliance and completeness checks

Benchmarking & Market Intelligence

• Establish and maintain historical cost benchmarks by project type, prototype, and market
• Lead annual program-level benchmarking updates
• Monitor market conditions, cost drivers, and pricing volatility
• Provide standardized variance narratives and market context to leadership and clients

Cost Risk Visibility & Analytics

• Lead portfolio-level analysis of budget movement across pricing stages
• Identify recurring scope gaps, cost growth drivers, and estimating accuracy trends
• Maintain program-level cost assumption and risk registers
• Provide early warning insights to support recovery planning and decision-making

Value Opportunity Identification (Advisory)

• Identify repeatable scope, specification, or constructability alternatives with cost implications
• Support value engineering discussions through data-driven analysis and recommendations
• Provide advisory input only; no negotiation, approval, or implementation authority

Cross-Pillar COE Integration

• Partner with Scheduling to align cost and schedule assumptions
• Collaborate with Design Enablement to influence early-phase decisions
• Coordinate with Industrialized Construction to embed standardization and innovation
• Support PMO and Program Support functions with cost insight, data, and reporting alignment

EDUCATION A