Turnaround Program Lead, Data Center Projects
Location: San Francisco, CA preferred | Remote flexibility available
Duration: 6-Month W2 Contract (Potential to Extend)
Pay Rate: $170–$185/hour W2
Recruiting Firm: Russell Tobin
About the Role
Russell Tobin is supporting a leading technology company in hiring a Turnaround Program Lead to drive commercial execution and issue resolution across complex data center development projects.
This role focuses on identifying the commercial and operational issues behind delayed projects, translating negotiated agreements into actionable plans, and ensuring developers, landlords, and internal stakeholders fulfill their commitments.
The ideal candidate combines strong contract knowledge, real estate asset management experience, and the ability to drive progress across multiple organizations.
This is not a traditional construction project manager role. The focus is on commercial obligations, stakeholder accountability, and executing negotiated solutions.
Key Responsibilities
- Manage commercial execution and contractual obligations across 2–5 active data center projects or agreements.
- Partner with construction leads, developers, and landlords to identify project delays, underlying causes, and potential commercial solutions.
- Support commercial negotiations by analyzing project challenges, contractual responsibilities, and opportunities to unblock progress.
- Translate negotiated agreements into detailed execution plans with assigned owners, deadlines, deliverables, and measurable completion criteria.
- Maintain comprehensive responsibility matrices, contract obligation registers, action logs, and reporting trackers.
- Coordinate weekly meetings across developers, landlords, and internal stakeholders to drive accountability and resolve outstanding commitments.
- Proactively identify missed milestones, contractual risks, and operational obstacles, escalating issues with recommended solutions.
- Track insurance certificates, lease-related obligations, counterparty deliverables, and commercial agreement requirements.
- Develop and improve escalation processes, performance scorecards, and cross-company operating procedures.
- Document successful turnaround approaches and develop repeatable playbooks for future projects.
Qualifications
- 2–5+ years of relevant experience in real estate asset management, commercial development, owner's representation, contract management, or program operations.
- Experience supporting complex commercial agreements, capital projects, or multi-party development programs.
- Strong ability to interpret contracts and translate obligations into structured action plans.
- Demonstrated success coordinating stakeholders across multiple organizations and driving progress without direct authority.
- Experience resolving project delays, commercial disputes, operational bottlenecks, or other complex business issues.
- Excellent organizational skills, including experience managing detailed trackers, deliverables, and deadlines.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills with the ability to summarize complex challenges and recommend solutions.
- Proficiency with Excel, Google Sheets, and collaborative project management tools.
- Highly proactive, detail-oriented, and comfortable operating in ambiguous, fast-paced environments.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience with data center development, industrial real estate, energy infrastructure, or other large-scale capital projects.
- Background with real estate firms such as JLL, CBRE, Prologis, or similar organizations.
- Experience in real estate asset management, lease administration, or commercial contract compliance.
- Familiarity with CoStar, Slack, and commercial real estate systems.
- Exposure to project turnaround, restructuring, operational consulting, or distressed project recovery.
- Experience building lightweight tracking systems, improving workflows, or using AI-enabled productivity tools.
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