Construction Lead
Owner-Side Construction & Site Management Oversight Location: Huntsville, Alabama Project: Lilly Huntsville Project Workstream: Construction & Site Management Oversight
Position Summary
We are seeking an experienced Construction Lead to provide Owner-side field leadership for a major greenfield pharmaceutical manufacturing project in Huntsville, Alabama. The Construction Lead will serve as a key member of the Owner’s Representative / Project Management Contractor (OR/PMC) team and act as an extension of Lilly’s organization, providing independent oversight, technical expertise, and proactive management through construction and handover.
This is a highly visible, field-focused leadership position responsible for maintaining an active site presence, independently verifying construction progress, providing quality-control assurance, and overseeing HSE performance across all construction contractors. Workstream 5 specifically requires the OR/PMC to provide construction and site management oversight.
The Construction Lead will represent Lilly’s interests in the field while working collaboratively with construction contractors to resolve issues, remove bottlenecks, and promote safe, high-quality, predictable project execution.
Key Responsibilities
Provide day-to-day Owner-side construction leadership across the project site.
Maintain a strong and active field presence, monitoring construction activities, contractor performance, site conditions, quality, safety, sequencing, and execution.
Coordinate construction oversight across multiple contractors, work packages, facilities, and site areas.
Develop productive working relationships with construction contractors while maintaining the independence required of the Owner’s Representative.
Identify construction issues, constraints, interfaces, and bottlenecks and work with appropriate parties to drive timely resolution.
Provide Lilly leadership with objective assessments of actual field conditions, emerging risks, contractor performance, and recommended corrective actions.
Support construction sequencing, site logistics, temporary facilities, access, laydown, material flow, and constructability coordination.
Ensure construction execution remains aligned with project objectives, schedule milestones, operational constraints, and commissioning requirements.
Coordinate closely with Project Controls, Engineering, Quality, HSE, Procurement, and Commissioning & Qualification teams.
The scope expressly establishes that the OR/PMC acts in an advisory and oversight capacity and does not assume responsibility for contractors' means, methods, techniques, sequences, procedures, or safety programs.
Independent Progress Verification
A major responsibility of the Construction Lead is providing Lilly with an independent and accurate view of physical construction progress, rather than relying solely on contractor-reported information.
Responsibilities include:
Independently verify and quantify construction progress reported by contractors.
Validate progress associated with contractor applications for payment.
Perform or coordinate physical verification of installed equipment, materials, and completed construction quantities.
Use physical measurements, agreed rules of credit, contractor manpower, equipment utilization, and other indicators to validate reported progress.
Support advanced reality-capture techniques such as 3D laser scanning/LiDAR, drone mapping, and photographic time capture where appropriate.
Compare independently verified progress against contractor reports and identify material discrepancies.
Challenge contractor-reported progress or payment applications when physical field conditions do not substantiate reported completion.
Provide verified field information to Project Controls for schedule and progress reporting.
The Scope of Services makes independent progress assurance a key OR/PMC responsibility and requires a robust process that gives Lilly an independent understanding of physical progress sufficient to challenge contractor claims and payment applications.
Quality Control & Construction Assurance
The Construction Lead will provide independent Owner-side quality-control oversight to help ensure construction work complies with project drawings, specifications, applicable codes, and established quality requirements.
Responsibilities include:
Conduct and coordinate independent field quality inspections.
Monitor contractor inspection and testing activities.
Coordinate Owner Hold Points and Witness Points for critical construction activities.
Verify that required inspections and releases occur before contractors proceed with subsequent work.
Identify defective or out-of-specification construction.
Issue or facilitate non-conformance reports and track corrective actions.
Review contractor inspection and test logs to assess compliance with contractors' own quality procedures.
Identify recurring defects or quality trends and support After Action Reports to determine root causes and prevent recurrence.
Ensure the Owner-side team has the capability and appropriate tools to perform inspections independently rather than relying solely on contractor inspection equipment.
The scope specifically requires independent quality-control inspections and provides for Owner Hold/Witness Points, non-conformance reporting, independent inspection capability, and After Action Reports for significant or recurring quality issues.
Health, Safety & Environment (HSE) Assurance
The Construction Lead will champion a proactive safety culture and provide Owner-side HSE assurance across all construction contractors while recognizing that each contractor remains responsible for its own HSE activities.
The Construction Lead will:
Monitor project-wide HSE performance and contractor compliance with approved safety plans.
Participate in and support routine field safety walks and independent HSE audits.
Pay particular attention to high-risk activities, including heavy lifts and other critical construction operations.
Review contractor safety performance, logs, trends, incidents, and recurring concerns.
Verify that high-risk work is performed in accordance with approved procedures, required permits, and qualification requirements.
Escalate significant safety concerns and HSE non-conformances.
Support sitewide HSE dashboards and near-real-time reporting to Lilly.
Promote lessons learned and continuous improvement across contractors.
Support After Action Reports for serious or recurring incidents.
Exercise appropriate stop-work authority when HSE non-conformances are identified, consistent with the OR/PMC governance framework.
The scope requires independent HSE audits, routine safety walks, contractor safety-plan oversight, independent HSE reporting, continuous improvement across contractors, and stop-work authority for identified HSE non-conformances.
Qualifications
Bachelor’s degree in Construction Management, Engineering, Architecture, or a related technical discipline preferred; substantial equivalent construction experience may be considered.
Typically 15+ years of progressive construction experience, including significant field leadership on complex capital projects.
Demonstrated experience in an Owner’s Representative, PMC, EPCM, construction management, or senior field construction leadership role.
Experience managing or overseeing multiple major construction contractors simultaneously.
Large-scale pharmaceutical, biotechnology, life sciences, chemical/process, semiconductor, advanced manufacturing, or similarly complex industrial construction experience strongly preferred.
Experience with cGMP pharmaceutical construction environments highly desirable.
Strong knowledge of construction means and methods, sequencing, constructability, site logistics, quality control, contractor management, and HSE.
Demonstrated experience independently validating physical construction progress and contractor payment applications.
Experience with inspection/test plans, Hold/Witness Points, NCRs, corrective actions, and construction quality documentation.
Strong understanding of construction drawings, specifications, schedules, RFIs, submittals, look-ahead schedules, change management, and field reporting.
OSHA 30 or comparable construction safety credential preferred.
Familiarity with LiDAR, drone mapping, 3D reality capture, digital construction management, or similar progress-verification technology preferred.
Leadership Competencies
The successful Construction Lead will be a field-oriented leader who is comfortable spending significant time actively walking and evaluating the construction site. The individual must have the technical credibility and professional judgment to independently assess contractor performance and constructively challenge information that is inconsistent with observed field conditions.
The role requires strong communication, collaboration, problem-solving, decision-making, and contractor-management capabilities, along with the ability to communicate significant construction, quality, schedule, and HSE risks clearly to Lilly leadership.
Key Measures of Success
Success in this role will be demonstrated through:
Strong and consistent Owner-side field presence.
Accurate, independent verification of physical construction progress.
Early identification and resolution of construction constraints.
Effective oversight and coordination across all construction contractors.
Reliable validation of contractor progress and payment applications.
Strong quality performance and timely resolution of non-conformances.
Effective HSE assurance and proactive identification of unsafe conditions.
Timely escalation of construction, quality, schedule, and HSE risks to Lilly.
Effective coordination between construction, engineering, project controls, quality, HSE, and C&Q.
Construction completion that supports safe and orderly commissioning, qualification, and handover.
Important Role Distinction
This is an Owner-side oversight and assurance role—not the contractor’s Construction Manager. The Construction Lead provides independent field leadership, progress verification, quality-control inspection, HSE assurance, coordination, reporting, and challenge on Lilly’s behalf. Construction contractors retain responsibility for their own means, methods, techniques, sequences, procedures, and safety programs.
The position will support a highly complex Huntsville development exceeding $6 billion in estimated capital investment, approximately 200 acres, and more than one million square feet of facilities, with multiple specialized manufacturing and support facilities being developed as an integrated cGMP campus.
EOE