Senior Commercial Manager at Equinix

Job Summary

• This position reports directly to the EMEA South Retail Commercial Management Director, Global Design & Construction
• The primary focus of the role is commercial management oversight across Equinix’s portfolio major expansion construction projects throughout EMEA. Specifically, this role covers the Africa Capex Expansion projects
• The position works closely with other internal project teams. Including Design, Construction, Procurement (including Major Capital Equipment (MCE) Purchasing), Finance, PMO, Finance, Legal and Corporate Development
• The role is expected to provide proactive strategic and day-to-day leadership specifically focused to drive down construction costs, provide assurance against internal financial controls and reporting processes and help manage all major contract risks

Responsibilities

Pre-Contract

• Procurement of third-party consultants including Design, Commercial and Pre-Construction Services
• Development of detailed Request for Proposals (RFP) and service deliverables for the commercial management services
• Day to day management of third-party commercial consultants to ensure deliverables are met in a timely manner and to a high standard
• Development of General Contractor and supplier procurement strategies in conjunction with the Construction Management (CM) team
• Working with Legal and Procurement Centre of Excellence (COE) to prepare General Contractor Contracts including negotiation of Contract terms
• Collation and presentation of market insights for the construction industry in the relevant country including market activity, comparative builds, construction cost indices, key suppliers and benchmarking information
• Preparation of budgets for all design stages including feasibility estimation, detailed cost modelling, benchmarking analysis and presentation of this to senior management throughout funding approval stages
• Ensure that all cost data is prepared and presented in the Equinix WBS
• Input and action of Value Engineering (VE) exercises at all stages of design. The output must be clear cost evaluation to support decision making
• Prepare annual and quarterly cashflow forecasts for active and pipeline projects
• Prepare and oversee monthly reports for budget, cashflow, risk and change management

Post Contract

• Day to day management of third-party commercial consultants to ensure deliverables are met in a timely manner and to a high standard
• Monitor adherence against budget throughout the project lifespan including cost checks and reviews, value engineering and cost saving initiatives and evaluation of alternates
• Oversee and provide guidance on commercial change management and change evaluation efforts on all projects
• Monitor and report monthly and quarterly on project portfolio cash flow for the region
• Provide Construction in Place (CIP) data to Finance
• Pro-actively lead all commercial risk management efforts including commercial audits, contingency analyses, risk identification and analyses and management training
• Prepare and oversee monthly cost reports for budget, cashflow, risk and change management
• Monitor the financial close-out on all projects including settlement of all vendors
• Prepare lessons learned cost analysis and detailed Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) analysis of outturn costs

Qualifications

• Bachelors degree in construction, business, financial or related field
• Proven experience in a related function for projects in Africa
• Preferably Data Center / strong MEP experience
• Preferably RICS accreditation
• Must be detail orientated, with accurate input and proof-reading skills
• Must be able to handle multiple tasks in a fast-paced environment
• Must have strong business acumen
• Must have strong written and verbal communication skills
• Must have strong sense of accountability, ownership and urgency
• Must have strong computer skills, particularly with Excel