Arup retained our services to recruit a Director – Integrated Controls Lead to strengthen and grow its Programme & Project Management capability across major infrastructure sectors, securing a senior leader with over 20 years’ experience in programme management and project controls leadership.
Arup is a global engineering, design and consulting business, working across the infrastructure and built environment industry. As part of the continued growth of its Programme and Project Management (PPM) capability, Arup sought to appoint a Director – Integrated Controls Lead to strengthen and expand its project controls offering across major infrastructure programmes.
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Arup retained our services to appoint a Director – Integrated Controls Lead within its PPM team. The role was a strategically important hire, responsible for leading and developing Arup’s integrated controls capability across sectors including transport, infrastructure, energy, water and complex buildings.
The successful candidate would act as a senior leader within the business, helping to shape future service offerings, lead client relationships and support the continued growth of the PPM function.
Arup sought candidates with extensive experience across major infrastructure environments, alongside strong leadership capability, commercial awareness and a proven track record of work winning and developing high-performing teams.
Our search focused on identifying senior project controls and programme management leaders from across the infrastructure and built environment sectors.
We mapped talent across major multi-disciplinary consultancies, project management consultancies, tier 1 contractors and client-side infrastructure organisations. This included targeted research into organisations delivering major programmes across transport, water, energy, aviation and nuclear sectors.
All shortlisted candidates were assessed through competency-based interviews, with detailed reporting provided to Arup on their leadership capability, commercial experience, work-winning track record and overall suitability for the role.
A key challenge during the search was the tight timeframe in which the assignment needed to be completed, alongside the nuanced nature of the brief. Arup required a candidate who combined technical excellence in integrated controls with strong commercial capability, proven leadership skills and the credibility to act as a highly visible figure both internally and externally within the PPM market, significantly narrowing the available talent pool.
To overcome these challenges, we implemented a focused and proactive search strategy, leveraging our existing network alongside detailed market mapping. We maintained a high level of engagement throughout the process and positioned the opportunity effectively to secure interest from senior, high-calibre candidates, enabling us to deliver a strong shortlist within the required timeframe.
From a longlist of 51, we presented a shortlist of five candidates. The shortlist was diverse in background, with 40% of shortlisted candidates being women.
The successful candidate joined from a tier contractor, where he held a senior programme leadership position. He brought more than 20 years of experience across programme management and project controls leadership within major infrastructure environments.
