Overview

Planning & Controlling Manager Jobs in Al Khobar, Eastern, Saudi Arabia at Sumou Investment

Title: Planning & Controlling Manager

Company: Sumou Investment

Location: Al Khobar, Eastern, Saudi Arabia

Job Title: Planning & Controlling Manager

Company Description

Sumou Global Investment (SGI), the principal investor within Sumou Group, leverages substantial assets and a significant land bank to drive strategic growth and long-term value across the region. SGI focuses on advancing business development and fostering innovation across its affiliated companies. It serves as a key link between entities such as Sumou Real Estate, Adeer Real Estate, Sumou Holding, and Bona Company. By creating synergy across all business lines, SGI supports a dynamic, growth-oriented environment for professionals seeking impact-driven careers.

 

Main Role Purpose

Establish and personally operate SGI’s planning and project controls function across assigned projects and the wider portfolio. The role is accountable for developing and maintaining reliable project schedules, measuring actual progress, forecasting outcomes, driving recovery actions, and preparing decision-oriented monthly reports for the CEO, fund managers, capital partners, and their advisors. 

Scope & Context 

  • Hands-on individual-contributor role: the role holder will initially have no Planning Engineer, scheduler, reporting analyst, or coordinator supporting the function and must personally prepare and maintain the schedules, dashboards, analyses, and monthly reports. 
  • Portfolio coverage: support SGI projects across residential, commercial, hospitality, mixed-use, infrastructure, and other real-estate asset classes, from early development through design, procurement, construction, and handover. 
  • Independent controls viewpoint: work closely with Project Directors, consultants, contractors, and cost advisors while independently validating reported progress, forecasts, and risks on behalf of SGI management. 
  • Function-building mandate: develop the procedures, templates, systems, and reporting discipline required for the future expansion of SGI’s project controls and PMO capability. 

Key Responsibilities 

  • Hands-On Schedule Development: personally build project schedules from first principles using Primavera P6 and/or Microsoft Project. Develop the WBS, activity logic, calendars, durations, milestones, interfaces, constraints, critical path, float analysis, and stage-gate structure covering development, design, authority approvals, procurement, construction, testing, handover, and close-out. This is not limited to consolidating schedules prepared by others. 
  • Baseline and Integrated Planning: prepare and maintain SGI’s approved master schedule for each project and the integrated portfolio milestone plan. Ensure alignment with approved business cases, contractual milestones, design deliverables, procurement packages, construction sequencing, and required completion dates. 
  • Progress Measurement and Schedule Updates: define progress measurement methods, collect and verify updates from internal and external parties, update schedules directly, perform planned-versus-actual analysis, and maintain auditable schedule narratives and supporting records. 
  • Forecasting, Recovery, and Early Warning: identify slippage and emerging constraints early, forecast milestone and completion dates, develop recovery and mitigation scenarios, evaluate their practicality, and monitor implementation of agreed corrective actions. 
  • Monthly Executive and Fund Reporting: personally compile, analyze, write, and issue complete monthly project reports for the CEO and fund managers/ITC. Reports shall include an executive summary, milestone status, planned-versus-actual progress, schedule variance, critical path, forecast completion, look-ahead activities, design/authority/procurement/construction status, validated cost and cash-flow inputs, IPC/payment status, key risks, changes, claims, recovery actions, decisions required, and relevant progress photographs. 
  • Cost, Cash Flow, and IPC Alignment: coordinate with Project Directors, Finance, QS/cost consultants, and fund representatives to align schedule progress with approved budgets, cash-flow forecasts, commitments, and IPC status. Flag inconsistencies between physical progress, certified value, and forecast expenditure. 
  • Claims, EOT, and Change Support: provide schedule analysis, contemporaneous records, delay narratives, and time-impact support for claims, extensions of time, change requests, and contractual assessments, without assuming commercial approval authority outside the approved DoA. 
  • Project Controls Governance: establish and maintain SGI planning procedures, schedule coding standards, reporting calendars, data cut-off dates, templates, progress rules, baseline-control protocols, and escalation thresholds. 

Typical Key Tasks / Activities 

  • Create the initial development and delivery schedule for every assigned project directly in Primavera P6 or Microsoft Project, including all required logic and milestones. 
  • Update each project schedule at the agreed weekly/monthly cut-off and maintain the approved baseline, current programme, and recovery versions. 
  • Chair or support schedule-update meetings and challenge unsupported progress percentages, unrealistic dates, open-ended activities, excessive constraints, and defective logic. 
  • Prepare CEO-level executive dashboards and the detailed monthly fund/ITC reporting pack without relying on another staff member to draft the schedules, charts, analysis, or report narrative. 
  • Maintain portfolio milestone trackers, design and authority approval trackers, procurement schedules, constraints logs, risk registers, and recovery-action logs. 
  • Attend project meetings and site visits as required to validate reported progress and obtain reliable information for schedules and reports. 
  • Support Project Directors in preparing decision papers, management presentations, and schedule-related recommendations. 

Decision Rights

  • Establish and maintain SGI planning methodologies, WBS/coding structures, progress measurement rules, reporting templates, and monthly cut-off calendars. 
  • Request and challenge schedule, progress, risk, cost, and reporting inputs from internal teams, consultants, contractors, and advisors. 
  • Recommend acceptance, rejection, or conditional acceptance of baseline programmes, updated programmes, recovery plans, and schedule-related EOT narratives. 
  • Escalate critical delays, unrealistic forecasts, missing information, non-compliance, and decisions that threaten project milestones, budget, or fund obligations. 
  • No unilateral authority to approve payments, claims, variations, EOTs, budget changes, or contractual commitments unless specifically delegated through SGI’s DoA. 

Key Interfaces 

  • Internal: CEO and executive management; Asset Delivery leadership; Project Directors; Design & Engineering; Site/Client Representatives; Finance; Commercial/QS; Procurement & Contracts; Document Management; Marketing and Sales, where relevant. 
  • External: fund managers, capital partners, ITC and fund advisors; design and supervision consultants; cost consultants; contractor and subcontractor planners; operators; authorities and specialist advisors, as required. 

Key Recurring Outputs 

  • Detailed project master schedules and approved baseline programmes prepared and maintained directly by the role holder. 
  • Integrated portfolio master schedule and milestone dashboard. 
  • Monthly CEO project/portfolio performance report. 
  • Detailed monthly fund manager / ITC project report and supporting schedule narrative. 
  • Critical-path analysis, completion forecast, milestone variance, and 30/60/90-day look-ahead. 
  • Schedule analysis and records supporting claims, EOTs, and management decisions. 

Success Measures

  • Schedule ownership and reliability: all required schedules are personally prepared, logically sound, baselined, updated on time, and accepted with minimal correction; forecast dates demonstrate improving accuracy. 
  • Reporting quality and timeliness: CEO and fund/ITC monthly reports are issued by the agreed deadline, are complete and decision-oriented, and require minimal management rework. 
  • Early-warning and recovery effectiveness: material slippages and constraints are identified early, escalated with clear impact analysis, and supported by practical mitigation or recovery recommendations. 
  • Portfolio visibility and governance: management has consistent, auditable, and current information on milestones, critical risks, progress, forecasts, and decisions required across the portfolio. 

Required Qualifications & Core Competencies 

  • Education: Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Architecture, Construction Management, Project Management, or a closely related discipline. 
  • Experience: typically 8–12 years in project planning and controls, including at least five years of direct, hands-on responsibility for building and maintaining detailed schedules on major real-estate, mixed-use, hospitality, commercial, residential, infrastructure, or construction projects. 
  • Primavera P6: advanced practical proficiency is mandatory. The candidate must be capable of creating a complete schedule from a blank file, not only reviewing or updating programmes prepared by others. 
  • Reporting: proven ability to personally prepare high-quality monthly project reports, executive summaries, dashboards, S-curves, variance analyses, and management presentations for senior executives, clients, funds, or boards. 
  • Digital tools: advanced Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint skills; strong Microsoft Project capability; Power BI or similar dashboarding experience is preferred. 
  • Technical knowledge: strong understanding of critical path methodology, progress measurement, schedule risk, recovery planning, cost/schedule integration, cash flow, IPCs, change control, claims, and EOT principles. 
  • Communication: excellent written and spoken English, with the ability to write clear executive and fund-facing reports. Arabic is an advantage. 
  • Certifications: PMP, PMI-SP, AACE PSP, or equivalent professional certification is preferred. 

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