Associate Director Pre-Lease Due Diligence Program Manager (Data Center Construction)

Company Description

Turner & Townsend is a global professional services company with over 22,000 people in more than 60 countries. 

Working with our clients across real estate, infrastructure, energy and natural resources, we transform together delivering outcomes that improve people’s lives. Working in partnership makes it possible to deliver the world’s most impactful projects and programmes as we turn challenge into opportunity and complexity into success. 

Our capabilities include programme, project, cost, asset and commercial management, controls and performance, procurement and supply chain, net zero and digital solutions. 

We are majority-owned by CBRE Group, Inc., the world’s largest commercial real estate services and investment firm, with our partners holding a significant minority interest. Turner & Townsend and CBRE work together to provide clients with the premier programme, project and cost management offering in markets around the world. 

Job Description

Turner & Townsend is seeking an Associate Director, Program Manager to lead pre-lease technical due diligence for a confidential hyperscale data center client. You will work hand in hand with the client leads to assess candidate sites and give the deal team the technical, cost, and schedule facts behind each go or no-go decision.

This is a program and risk management role. You will own diligence on a portfolio of live deals, direct internal specialists, third-party consultants, and client partners to close out the work, and judge quickly what matters and what does not. Deals run on short exclusivity windows and the information is rarely complete. We are looking for people who take the initiative, stay organized in a chaotic environment, and get things done.

Construction and on-site experience is welcome, but this is not a delivery or construction role. The preferred background is data center development.

Two positions are available with an immediate start. San Francisco is preferred. Other locations and remote will be considered for the right candidate.

Responsibilities

• Site due diligence: Lead technical diligence on candidate sites, covering power, land, utilities, entitlements, environmental, geotechnical, and civil constraints. Define what each deal needs investigated and in what order, then confirm the findings answer the questions the transaction team is asking.
• Cost review: Direct the review of developer budgets, long lead equipment pricing, and reimbursable cost exhibits. Dedicated cost specialists perform the analysis; you set its scope, challenge what comes back, and determine what it means for the deal.
• Schedule review: Direct the review of developer schedules, covering critical path, sequencing, long lead equipment, and utility milestones. Dedicated schedule specialists perform the analysis; you decide where the dates are genuinely at risk and what it takes to hold them.
• Risk management: Own the risk picture for each site. Grade every finding as it surfaces, assign an owner and a next step, quantify cost and schedule exposure where the evidence allows, and drive mitigation to closure.
• Evidence discipline: Distinguish what a developer has stated from what has been secured, and never communicate more confidence than the evidence supports.
• Escalation: Raise serious findings the same day they surface, with an impact and a recommended option attached. Deals do not slow down; decisions get made with eyes open.
• Transaction support: Act as the single point of contact for the client through the deal cycle. Summarize findings for decision makers and provide the technical input behind term sheet and lease negotiation.
• Third-party management: Scope, direct, and hold accountable the external consultants supporting diligence, including civil, environmental, geotechnical, MEP, cost, and schedule. Review deliverables for quality before they reach the client.
• Stakeholder management: Run the day-to-day interface across internal teams, developer counterparties, and client groups spanning design, energy, supply chain, legal, and delivery. Chase input, resolve conflicts, and keep decisions moving.
• Reporting and governance: Serve as the single source of truth on diligence status, open items, decisions, and outstanding risk for every site in your portfolio.
• Handover: At lease execution, produce the record of what was found, what was assumed, and what was knowingly accepted as open risk, and hand the site to the delivery team without gaps.
• Continuous improvement: Build the repeatable diligence approach, checklists, and templates that