Construction & Commissioning Leader

Job Description Summary

Job Description

Role Summary

The Construction & Commissioning Canada Hydro Leader is responsible for leading site construction execution and providing commissioning support across the GE Vernova Hydro Canada project portfolio. This role provides regional leadership for safe, compliant, high-quality, and on-time field execution across hydro rehabilitation, modernization, upgrade, and new unit installation projects for all provinces in Canada, excluding the province of Quebec.

The role is accountable for driving construction and commissioning excellence across Canada, ensuring disciplined execution from site mobilization through installation, turnover, commissioning, startup, and final handover. The leader works closely with Project Management, Engineering, Sourcing, EHS, Quality, and Service teams to deliver strong customer outcomes and operational performance.

This role also drives standardization, talent development, and continuous improvement in field execution practices across the Canada Hydro business.

Essential Responsibilities:

Regional Leadership

• Lead all construction activities for GE Vernova Hydro projects in Canada, excluding the province of Quebec.
• Provide commissioning support and interface coordination.
• Provide regional oversight across multiple active project sites, ensuring alignment to business priorities, execution standards, and customer commitments.
• Provide regional support to Service projects for supervision and craft labour
• Act as the senior regional leader for construction and commissioning-related matters strengthening GE Vernova Hydro’s execution capability and customer reputation in Canada
• Direct impact on SQDC - safety, quality, accountability, schedule, customer satisfaction, and margin performance

Project Execution

• Oversee execution from site mobilization through erection, installation, mechanical completion, commissioning, startup, performance testing, and project handover.
• Ensure construction and commissioning strategies are aligned with project schedules, outage windows, contractual milestones, and customer operating requirements.
• Review project staffing, site organization, execution readiness, and risk mitigation plans.
• Monitor site progress, productivity, quality, cost, and schedule performance across the Canada hydro portfolio.
• Support project teams in managing escalations, recovery actions, and critical execution risks.

Construction & Commissioning Oversight

• Lead field execution for hydro equipment and systems, including turbines, generators, governors, excitation systems, controls, protection systems, auxiliaries, and associated plant interfaces.
• Ensure strong coordination across technical, operational, civil, electrical, and mechanical interfaces at site.
• Oversee outage-based activities and retrofit execution in operating power-generating stations.
• Drive commissioning readiness, completions and pre-commissioning to support energization, startup, synchronization, testing, and turnover processes.
• Ensure closure of punch items, deficiencies, and open technical issues required for final acceptance.

EHS, Quality & Compliance

• Champion GE Vernova’s SQDC bedrock culture and ensure compliance with all applicable regulatory, customer, and company requirements to ensure robust execution controls are in place to minimize safety events, rework, delays, and execution variability.
• Support incident investigations, root cause analysis, and corrective action implementation.
• Drive quality excellence through disciplined inspections, documentation, hold-point management, and non-conformance resolution.
• Promote an execution model that reduces rework and lost productivity and mitigates product nonconformance from escaping defects or site performance standards.

Team Leadership & Capability Building

• Lead, coach, and develop skilled and experienced field teams across Canada.
• Build organizational capability in hydro construction to align and cooperate with commissioning execution.
• Support workforce planning, succession planning, and talent development for the Canada Hydro field organization.
• Foster a collaborative, transparent, and high-performance operating culture.

Customer & Cross-Functional Partnership

• Build strong relationships with utility customers, site representatives, contractors, and internal stakeholders.
• Partner closely with Project Directors, Project Managers, Engineering, Sourcing, EHS, Quality, and Service teams to deliver successful outcomes.
• Represent Construction & Commissioning in project reviews, customer discussions, and leadership forums.
• Support tendering bid and planning phases by contributing execution expertise, site strategy input, and risk assessment across Canada, including Quebec projects.

Continuous Improvement

• Drive standardization of site execution practices, tools, KPIs, and governance across the Canada Hydro portfolio.
• Capture and apply lessons learned from rehabilitation, modernization, and new installation projects.
• Identify and implement opportunities to improve safety, productivity, commissioning effectiveness, schedule reliability, and cost performance.
• Strengthen execution predictability and customer confidence through operational excellence.

Qualifications / Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Construction Management, or related technical discipline, or equivalent experience.
• Significant experience in construction, pre-commissioning, field operations, or project execution leadership in hydropower, power generation, or heavy industrial environments.
• Demonstrated experience leading large hydro rehabilitation, modernization, upgrade, or installation projects.
• Strong technical understanding of hydro equipment and systems, including turbines, generators, excitation, governors, controls, protection systems, and auxiliaries.
• Proven ability to lead multiple project sites and cross-functional teams in a matrixed environment.
• Strong working knowledge of EHS, quality, contractor management, risk management, and site execution processes.
• Willingness and ability to travel frequently within Canada.

Desired Characteristics

• Strong leadership presence with the ability to influence across functions and levels.
• Deep customer focus and ability to build trust through execution excellence.
• Strong problem-solving skills and sound field judgment in complex operating environments.
• Advanced ability to set priorities and implement problem-solving options in a fast paced project delivery environment.
• Experience in outage planning and execution for operating hydro plants.
• Strong communication and stakeholder management skills.
• Demonstrated ability to drive standardization and continuous improvement.
• Experience working in OEM-led hydro project environments is preferred.
• P.Eng., PMP, and/or bilingual English/French capability are assets.

For candidates applying to a Canadian-based position, the pay range for this position is between $ 145,700.00 - 195,700 CAD. The specific pay offered may be influenced by a variety of factors, including the candidate’s experience, education, and skill set. 

Bonus eligibility: annual bonus

This posting is for an existing vacancy.

Additional Information