Senior Manager of Project Program Management

Senior Manager of Project & Program Management

Virginia Transformer Corp. | Roanoke, Virginia

About Virginia Transformer

Virginia Transformer manufactures custom-engineered power transformers that support critical infrastructure across utility, industrial, renewable energy, and data-center markets. Our success depends on engineering expertise, manufacturing quality, and a commitment to meeting our customers’ power requirements.

We are seeking a Senior Manager of Project & Program Management in Roanoke, Virginia, to lead project execution, develop project management talent, and ensure customer orders meet contractual, delivery, and financial objectives.

Position Summary

The Senior Manager of Project & Program Management will lead a team responsible for a portfolio of customer-specific transformer orders, from post-award turnover through engineering, procurement, manufacturing, factory testing, shipment, and closeout.

This is a hands-on leadership role accountable for project controls, customer communications, contract compliance, milestone coordination, and timely escalation of delivery and margin risks. The Senior Manager will work closely with sales, engineering, supply chain, manufacturing, quality, testing, logistics, and finance to maintain credible project plans, protect approved scope, and resolve execution challenges.

Across the portfolio, this leader will establish consistent project management practices, coordinate shared dependencies, and provide management with clear visibility into project performance and decisions requiring attention.

Key Responsibilities

Project Launch & Contract Alignment

• Lead post-award kickoffs and validate sales turnover records against signed agreements, approved proposals, and technical exceptions.
• Confirm equipment scope, contractual deliverables, drawing approval requirements, payment milestones, testing obligations, delivery terms, warranties, and notice deadlines.
• Establish project baseline schedules, responsibility assignments, risk registers, and customer communication plans.
• Identify customer dependencies, including site information, drawing reviews, inspection attendance, shipping permissions, and site readiness.
• Ensure requests for additional scope, accelerated delivery, extra testing, or revised commercial terms receive appropriate review and approval.

Project Planning & Manufacturing Coordination

• Oversee integrated schedules covering engineering release, approved bills of material, long-lead procurement, winding, core and tank fabrication, assembly, drying and oil processing, testing, and shipment.
• Lead regular cross-functional order reviews to verify progress, resolve constraints, assign action owners, and track commitments.
• Validate project status using actual engineering, procurement, and shop-floor milestones.
• Develop recovery plans when drawing releases, critical components, manufacturing resources, test-bay availability, or transportation threaten delivery.
• Coordinate priorities and shared dependencies across the order portfolio with functional leaders.
• Escalate delivery risks with clear recovery options, cost implications, and decisions requiring approval.

Customer Communication & Milestone Management

• Oversee timely, accurate customer reporting on drawing approvals, manufacturing progress, testing, and shipment readiness.
• Lead significant customer escalations and support project managers in managing complex or sensitive conversations.
• Coordinate inspection and factory acceptance testing notices, witness attendance, test procedures, punch-list closure, and release-to-ship approvals.
• Maintain documented records of customer decisions, approval delays, revised requirements, and other dependencies affecting execution.
• Ensure customer commitments reflect approved scope, validated schedules, and authorized commercial decisions.

Change Management & Commercial Protection

• Maintain control of contractual scope, technical exceptions, customer obligations, and required notices throughout execution.
• Identify changes affecting cost, schedule, testing, delivery, or warranty obligations and route them through formal change control.
• Coordinate engineering, sourcing, manufacturing, logistics, and finance inputs to quantify change impacts.
• Prepare supported change-order proposals and participate in negotiations within delegated authority.
• Document customer-caused delays and submit required notices within contractual deadlines.
• Escalate disputes, significant liabilities, and requests for concessions to senior leadership and legal counsel, as appropriate.

Project Financial Control

• Review project budgets, actual costs, committed costs, estimated cost-to-complete, and projected gross margins with finance.
• Monitor financial exposure from material delays, engineering changes, manufacturing rework, expediting, additional testing, freight, and shipping or site-readiness delays.
• Connect actual manufacturing progress and remaining work to credible cost and schedule forecasts.
• Track milestone billing requirements, customer acceptance obligations, retention, disputed balances, and outstanding billing dependencies.
• Identify emerging margin risks early and coordinate corrective actions with responsible functional leaders.

Shipment Readiness & Project Closeout

• Coordinate final testing, customer acceptance, documentation packages, specialized transportation, and contractual shipment requirements.
• Verify that required approvals, shipping documents, and outstanding actions are addressed before release.
• Lead project closeout reviews covering final costs, margin performance, change orders, contractual deliverables, and unresolved commercial items.
• Document lessons learned from late deliveries, cost overruns, approval delays, supplier issues, and handoff failures.
• Implement improvements that strengthen execution on subsequent transformer orders.

Team Leadership & Portfolio Governance

• Lead, coach, and develop assigned project managers and project support personnel.
• Review workloads and align team attention with the orders carrying the greatest delivery, technical, financial, or contractual risk.
• Standardize project schedules, action logs, customer correspondence, change registers, financial reports, and closeout records.
• Strengthen project managers’ ability to communicate clearly, negotiate within authority, and escalate issues with actionable recommendations.
• Provide consolidated dashboards showing engineering releases, material risks, manufacturing progress, test readiness, forecast shipment dates, financial exposure, and pending decisions.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in engineering, operations, project management, or a related discipline; equivalent experience delivering complex industrial equipment may be considered.
• At least 8 years of experience managing industrial equipment or engineered-to-order projects, including team-lead or supervisory responsibility.
• Demonstrated experience managing project schedules, budgets, change orders, contractual documentation, and customer escalations.
• Ability to interpret technical milestones and coordinate engineering, procurement, manufacturing, quality, testing, and logistics activities.
• Experience managing customer-driven drawing changes, approval delays, contractual notices, and factory testing or shipment requirements.
• Ability to translate actual manufacturing progress into reliable delivery forecasts and cost-to-complete estimates.
• Strong leadership, communication, negotiation, analytical, and project risk management skills.
• Proficiency with ERP systems, project scheduling tools, and portfolio reporting.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience managing power transformer, heavy electrical equipment, or comparable high-value custom equipment projects.
• Experience supporting utilities, EPC contractors, industrial customers, or data-center infrastructure projects.
• PMP certification.
• Experience supervising multiple project managers and overseeing a portfolio of concurrent customer orders.
• Familiarity with factory witness testing, liquidated damages, milestone payments, contractual retention, and specialized heavy-equipment transportation.
• Demonstrated success recovering change-order costs, managing customer dependencies, and improving project delivery and margin performance.

Measures of Success

• Contractual on-time delivery and milestone adherence.
• Reliability of factory test and shipment forecasts.
• Cost-to-complete accuracy and forecasted versus final project margin.
• Timely change-order identification, approval, and cost recovery.
• Timeliness of contractual notices and completeness of customer-delay documentation.
• Resolution of customer escalations, aged risks, and pending decisions.
• Project documentation quality and closeout completeness.
• Consistent execution and development of the project management team.

Build Your Career with Virginia Transformer

Join Virginia Transformer in Roanoke, Virginia, and lead the execution of complex transformer projects supporting essential power infrastructure. This opportunity is suited to a leader who combines manufacturing awareness, commercial judgment, customer accountability, and disciplined project management.