Project Director

FORTNA partners with the world’s leading brands to transform omnichannel and parcel distribution operations. Known world-wide for enabling companies to keep pace with digital disruption and growth objectives, we design and deliver solutions, powered by intelligent software, to optimize fast, accurate and cost-effective order fulfillment and last mile delivery. Our people, innovative approach and proprietary algorithms and tools ensure optimal operations design and material and information flow. We deliver exceptional value every day to our customers with comprehensive services and products including network strategy, distribution center operational design and implementation, material handling automated equipment, robotics and a comprehensive suite of lifecycle services. At FORTNA, we believe in fostering a workplace that isn't just a job but a movement – a collective effort to redefine success and transform challenges into opportunities. "Join the Movement" encapsulates our commitment to a workplace culture that thrives on collaboration, celebrates diversity, and empowers every individual to contribute to something greater than themselves. Our Team. Our Passion. Our Approach.  Job Summary: The Project Director serves as the senior delivery leader and primary customer-facing leader for FORTNA’s strategic, high-value accounts (>$60M). This role operates as the “enterprise-level project manager” and trusted advisor to the customer, accountable for the successful execution of automation programs across various U.S. sites. This individual must thrive in a fast-paced, high-demand customer environment, balancing executive stakeholder engagement, multi-site coordination, and internal team leadership to ensure consistent, high-quality delivery. The Project Director is ultimately responsible for aligning customer expectations with operational execution while driving accountability, communication, and results across all workstreams. This is a remote role with significant travel required based on customer and project needs. Responsibilities : Customer Leadership & Relationship Management ·Serve as the primary customer-facing leader for a major, high-value project site, ensuring alignment on execution priorities, expectations, risks, and outcomes. · Build and maintain trusted working relationships with customer project leaders, site leadership, and key stakeholders throughout the project lifecycle. · Act as the voice of the customer within the project team while maintaining appropriate boundaries, scope discipline, accountability, and commercial alignment. · Lead regular customer communication, including project updates, issue resolution, escalation management, schedule reviews, and performance discussions. · Partner with internal leaders to support customer confidence, project transparency, and timely resolution of critical issues. Project Execution & Site Delivery · Own end-to-end execution of a large, complex customer project site, typically exceeding $60M in value. · Lead all phases of project delivery from transition out of solution design through installation, commissioning, testing, go-live, and project closeout. · Manage project scope, budget, schedule, risks, resources, contractual obligations, and customer commitments. · Coordinate across project managers, engineering, supply chain, manufacturing, installation, software, controls, safety, and commissioning teams to ensure integrated execution. · Anticipate and proactively address operational, technical, customer, and site-level challenges in a complex, high-visibility environment. · Ensure successful delivery of integrated solutions, which may include MHE, robotics, controls, WCS/WMS, software, and other automation technologies. Cross-Functional Leadership · Provide day-to-day leadership to a matrixed project team across multiple functions, disciplines, and workstreams. · Set clear priorities, expectations, timelines, and accountability across internal and external project stakeholders. · Drive alignment between project teams, functional leaders, vendors, subcontractors, and customer representatives. · Mentor and support project managers and site-level leaders to strengthen execution discipline, ownership, and issue resolution. · Promote a culture of safety, urgency, transparency, collaboration, accountability, and continuous improvement. Financial, Commercial & Risk Management · Drive project financial performance through disciplined forecasting, cost management, margin protection, change management, and risk mitigation. · Monitor project performance against budget, schedule, margin, cash flow, and contractual milestones. · Identify scope changes, cost risks, schedule impacts, and customer-driven changes; partner with commercial and functional leaders to ensure appropriate documentation and resolution. · Lead project-level risk mitigation planning and decision-making across complex dependencies and competing priorities. · Escalate critical risks, trade-offs, and decisions in a timely and fact-based manner. Operational Excellence & Strategic Execution · Align project execution with customer business objectives, contractual commitments, and FORTNA delivery standards. · Partner with Sales, Solution Design, Engineering, Delivery, Software, and Operations teams to ensure a seamless transition from design to execution. · Drive value engineering, cost optimization, schedule recovery, and performance improvements without compromising safety, quality, or customer outcomes. · Ensure project governance, reporting, documentation, and communication practices support disciplined execution and informed decision-making. · Apply supply chain automation and large-scale implementation best practices to improve project delivery, customer experience, and business results. Required Knowledge, Skills, Abilities : · Demonstrated project leadership experience managing large, complex customer implementations, preferably ex