Associate Director, Project Management and Construction

About Us  

Imagine: 30 unique restaurants to order from, brought to your door in under 30 minutes. That’s what our customers experience.

At Wonder, we want to make world-class food within reach, no matter where you live. That’s why we’ve created a vertically integrated, new standard of dining that will allow you to enjoy menus from award-winning chefs and iconic restaurants across the country, all in one place. Our elevated brick + mortar locations will offer pick up and dine in options, as well as delivery to your home.

As a food-tech startup backed by top-tier venture capitalists and led by a team of experienced entrepreneurs—including some of the most accomplished leaders in the technology, culinary, and logistics industries—we’re growing. Join us in pioneering a new category of dining called “Fast-Fine”, and revolutionizing the way people eat.

About the role  

As the Associate Director (AD), Construction and Project Management in Texas (Dallas/Ft. Worth), you are a critical team member involved in running all aspects of project management and construction for a region. With an ambitious strategy and active development pipeline, this person will be an integral member of the development team.   A successful candidate will lead a team of internal or external construction project managers through the development cycle. This includes managing all aspects of due diligence, design, permitting, construction, and turnover of high-quality sites to the operations team. You will be required to manage very complex projects at an extraordinarily fast pace. In addition, this role will work cross functionally with operations, legal, finance, design and others to ensure sites are built to Wonder spec on time and on budget.

Responsibilities:

• Management of an internal and/or external team of project Managers responsible of up to 100 restaurant builds per year.
• Escalation point for managed staff to resolve design and constructability questions to maintain project budgets and schedules
• Executive liaison and escalation point for key vendor partners, including general contractors, design firms, 3rd party project management firms, and other partners for regional program pipeline, staffing, and contracting issues
• Constructability liaison for regional real estate acquisitions team for lease negotiation coordination
• Champion of internal cross functional collaboration with internal stakeholders including Facilities, IT, FSQA, Health, Safety, Procurement, Culinary, and all others to ensure regional role out success
• Interview, training, and developing talent of internal and external teams
• Construction project execution from due diligence of potential sites to design, through construction execution, and transition to operations 
• Develop and adhere to the budget, and schedule at the project level and the program level, track costs against KPI’s and report to senior management
• Plan all construction operations and schedule intermediate phases to ensure deadlines will be met; evaluate and hire vendors and allocate responsibilities
• Ensure adherence to all health and safety standards and report issues
• Analyze data and provide reports to help with forecasting and planning of future growth
• Frequently interacts with Real Estate team one LL work, zoning reviews and board hearings, construction estimates, and work letters as needed
• Work closely with Finance, Legal and other business partners to ensure projects meet current financial projections. 
• Identify, develop, and propose opportunities for business / process improvement

Experience:

• Extensive construction project management, multi-site, program management, retail, or restaurant building management. 10-15 years
• Experience managing direct reports including hiring and developing talent in a growing environment
• Providing live on-site field direction and or supervision
• Negotiating agreements with 3rd parties including suppliers and sub-contractors
• Creating program level reports and managing against KPI’s to maintain program pace
• Ability to redirect teams to overcome challenges
• Experience hitting time-sensitive deadlines and budgets

The way you work:  

• You have strong management skills and can build high performing teams
• You solve problems and make decisions informed by data, technology trends and insights, and good judgement
• You have a strong eye for detail, able to identify potential risks or callouts for each project
• You have strong organizational and project management skills, with the ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously
• You operate autonomously in driving projects and stakeholders forward; acknowledge and request support or gui