Director, Capital Projects

The Director, Capital Projects leads domestic and international capital projects for rare earth element recycling and recovery, from planning and site selection through engineering, procurement, construction, commissioning, start-up, and operational
handover. Reporting to the Senior Vice President, Capital Projects, Engineering & Procurement, this role ensures projects are delivered safely, on time, within scope, and on budget while meeting technical, commercial, regulatory, and strategic objectives.
The ideal candidate brings strong leadership, strategic planning, contract negotiation, engineering, and cross-functional execution experience in a global industrial environment, with the ability to navigate complex technical, commercial, regulatory, legal, and cultural challenges in a fast-paced start-up setting. The role follows a hybrid work model, with 4 days per week in the office and 1 day per week working from home. Domestic and international travel is expected to be approximately 40%, including travel to project sites, engineering offices, vendor facilities, construction locations, partner facilities, commissioning sites, and potential new facility locations.

Key Responsibilities

Global Capital Project Execution

• Lead global capital projects from initiation through completion, ensuring alignment with company strategy, growth objectives, technical requirements, and commercial priorities.
• Oversee complex plant development initiatives, including planning, site selection, engineering, procurement, construction, commissioning, start-up, and operational handover.
• Define scope, deliverables, timelines, budgets, resources, execution plans, governance, risks, and performance metrics with internal and external stakeholders.
• Deliver multiple capital initiatives safely, on time, within scope, and within budget in a matrixed global organization.

Plant Development, Engineering, and Technology

• Support scopes of work for new plant builds, expansions, upgrades, and technology deployments.
• Oversee bespoke physical and chemical processing plants for rare earth element recycling and recovery.
• Coordinate with engineering, operations, environmental, procurement, legal, finance, strategic partnerships, corporate development, and commercial teams to ensure safe, scalable, and commercially viable plant designs.
• Assess technologies that improve efficiency, recovery, throughput, safety, reliability, environmental performance, and operating costs while ensuring constructability, operability, maintainability, process safety, and commissioning readiness.

Site Selection and Due Diligence

•  Lead land and site selection for new facilities, including technical, commercial, logistical, environmental, utility, infrastructure, permitting, and regulatory assessments.
• Develop and apply site assessment criteria for greenfield and brownfield opportunities.
• Coordinate with legal, finance, engineering, environmental, and local advisors to support due diligence, acquisition, leasing, and development decisions.

Contracts, Procurement, and Partner Oversight

• Lead contract negotiation for engineering, procurement, construction, equipment supply, installation, commissioning, consulting, service, and vendor agreements.
• Partner with legal, procurement, finance, and executive leadership to structure agreements that protect company interests and support successful delivery.
• Evaluate and oversee contractors, suppliers, technology partners, trades, and subcontractors for capability, terms, schedules, risks, and performance.
• Oversee procurement strategies for major equipment, long-lead items, specialized processing systems, materials, construction services, and commissioning support.

Governance, Risk, and Performance Control

• Establish project governance, including stage-gate reviews, executive reporting, decision logs, change control, budget tracking, schedule monitoring, and performance dashboards.
• Identify and mitigate risks related to technology readiness, engineering, permitting, contractors, supply chain, cost, schedule, site conditions, logistics, and regulatory requirements.
• Develop contingency plans and corrective actions for emerging project risks.
• Apply appropriate project delivery methods and tools, including Agile, Scrum, Waterfall, stage-gate, Monte Carlo analysis, schedule compression, and hybrid approaches where relevant.
• Capture lessons learned, standardize execution practices, and document handover and operational readiness processes

Stakeholder, Team, and Communication Leadership

• Coordinate effectively with internal teams, external partners, engineering firms, contractors, suppliers, regulators, authorities, and key stakeholders.
• Lead cross-functional collaboration across time zones, cultures, disciplines, and geographies.
• Foster a high-performance, accountable, safety-focused, and results-oriented project environment.
• Communicate project status, risks, budget, schedule, required decisions, and strategic implications to executive leadership.
• Ensure alignment between project execution, operational readiness, commercial priorities, and long-term growth.

Health, Safety, Environment, and Compliance

• Champion a safety-first culture across site selection, engineering, construction, installation, commissioning, and start-up.
• Ensure compliance with company policies, laws, regulations, permitting requirements, environmental standards, occupational health and safety requirements, and best practices.
• Integrate sustainability, circular economy principles, emissions reduction, energy efficiency, water stewardship, waste minimization, and responsible materials recovery into project planning and execution.
• Maintain appropriate controls for chemical handling, hazardous materials, waste treatment, process safety, and environmental protection.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering or a related technical discipline; Chemical, Mechanical, Metallurgical, Materials, Process, Industrial, or Environmental Engineering preferred.
• Related business, project delivery, or technical degrees may be considered with substantial industrial capital project experience.
• International MBA or globally focused MBA preferred.
• PMP or Six Sigma Black Belt certification expected; PRINCE2 or equivalent international project delivery certification an asset.
• Professional engineering designation such as P.Eng., PE, Chartered Engineer, or equivalent strongly preferred.
• 12–15+ years leading global or large-scale industrial capital projects, preferably in chemical processing, metals, recycling, mining, critical minerals, rare earths, battery materials, specialty chemicals, or advanced manufacturing.
• Experience managing multiple projects across regions, time zones, regulatory environments, stakeholder groups, and matrixed global organizations.
• Demonstrated expertise in budgeting, scheduling, contract negotiation, stakeholder coordination, risk mitigation, and project governance.
• Experience with rare earths, critical minerals, hydrometallurgy, pyrometallurgy, solvent extraction, precipitation, chemical refining, metal recovery, e-waste recycling, battery recycling, or industrial waste valorization.
• Experience developing first-of-kind, next-of-kind, modular, or repeatable plant designs and supporting pilot-to-commercial scale-up.
• Experience with EPC, EPCM, design-build, owner-led delivery, equipment vendor-led delivery, and partner-led construction models.
• Experience with facility due diligence, site acquisition or leasing, international teams, cultural differences, local business practices, and remote collaboration.

Skills and Competencies

• Strong leadership, strategic planning, problem-solving, and decision-making skills.
• Excellent communication, stakeholder engagement, commercial judgment, and contract negotiation ability.
• Ability to translate business strategy into practical execution plans and adapt to changing priorities under tight deadlines.
• Strong understanding of industrial construction, installation, commissioning, process plant operations, and operational readiness.
• Proficiency with project planning, scheduling, collaboration, and reporting tools such as MS Project, Jira, Trello, Asana, Microsoft Office, Teams, SharePoint, or similar platforms.
• Familiarity with Agile, Scrum, Waterfall, stage-gate, and hybrid execution methodologies.
• Fluency in English required; additional languages are an asset.