HOD Railways

The Head of Railway Projects will provide strategic, technical, commercial, and operational leadership for the company's railway project portfolio. The role is responsible for delivering complex railway infrastructure projects safely, on time, within budget, and in accordance with contractual, regulatory, and quality requirements.

The position will lead multidisciplinary teams and oversee the complete project lifecycle, including tender review, planning, engineering, procurement, construction, testing, commissioning, handover, and contract closure. The successful candidate should have substantial experience working with railway authorities, government agencies, consultants, contractors, subcontractors, and technology partners.

Key Responsibilities

Strategic and Portfolio Leadership

• Develop and implement the railway projects strategy, operating plan, delivery framework, and annual project targets.
• Provide executive oversight across multiple projects, packages, regions, or corridors.
• Evaluate project opportunities, technical feasibility, delivery risks, resource requirements, and commercial viability.
• Establish governance structures, escalation mechanisms, performance standards, and decision-making protocols.
• Advise senior management on project priorities, investments, partnerships, contractual exposure, and operational risks.
• Ensure projects support the organization's revenue, profitability, quality, safety, and growth objectives.

Project Delivery

• Assume overall accountability for projects from contract award through final handover and closeout.
• Direct the preparation and approval of project execution plans, baseline schedules, budgets, procurement plans, resource plans, and cash-flow forecasts.
• Oversee civil, track, station, depot, bridge, tunnel, signaling, telecommunications, electrification, rolling-stock interface, and testing activities, as applicable.
• Monitor critical milestones, dependencies, productivity, earned value, cost forecasts, and completion status.
• Lead recovery planning for delayed or underperforming projects.
• Ensure proper management of interfaces among engineering, procurement, construction, testing, operations, and external stakeholders.
• Conduct executive project reviews and site inspections to verify progress, safety, quality, and contractual compliance.

Engineering and Technical Management

• Provide leadership for design coordination, constructability reviews, value engineering, technical approvals, and design-change management.
• Ensure designs and construction methods meet applicable railway standards, specifications, codes, and statutory requirements.
• Resolve complex technical, construction, and systems-integration issues.
• Ensure effective coordination among civil works, permanent way, signaling, telecommunications, traction power, overhead equipment, electrical systems, and rolling stock.
• Oversee testing, systems assurance, interface validation, trial operations, commissioning, and readiness for commercial service.
• Promote standardized designs, digital engineering, Building Information Modelling, and technology-led delivery improvements where appropriate.

Commercial and Contract Management

• Maintain accountability for project budgets, profitability, cash flow, contractual compliance, and financial performance.
• Review contracts, technical specifications, bills of quantities, scope boundaries, payment terms, milestones, and risk allocation.
• Oversee variation orders, extension-of-time submissions, claims, counterclaims, dispute avoidance, and commercial negotiations.
• Ensure timely measurement, billing, certification, collection, and subcontractor settlement.
• Monitor cost-to-complete forecasts and initiate corrective measures when financial or schedule deviations arise.
• Coordinate with legal and commercial teams on contractual notices, dispute resolution, arbitration, and litigation when required.

Procurement and Supply Chain

• Approve project-specific procurement, subcontracting, logistics, and material-control strategies.
• Oversee the selection and performance of subcontractors, vendors, original equipment manufacturers, and specialist partners.
• Ensure timely availability of rails, sleepers, turnouts, signaling equipment, electrical systems, construction materials, plant, machinery, and long-lead items.
• Manage supply-chain risks, inspections, factory acceptance testing, expediting, storage, and material traceability.
• Promote local sourcing and supplier development where commercially and technically feasible.

Safety, Quality, and Compliance

• Provide visible leadership in establishing a zero-harm safety culture across all projects.
• Ensure compliance with occupational health and safety, environmental, railway operational, and statutory requirements.
• Review and monitor project safety plans, method statements, work permits, audits, incident reports, and corrective actions.
• Ensure implementation of quality assurance and quality control systems, inspection and test plans, non-conformance controls, and audit programs.
• Confirm that all project records, approvals, test certificates, as-built drawings, operating manuals, and handover documents are complete.
• Ensure construction near operating railway lines complies with possession, isolation, traffic-block, and railway-safety procedures.

Risk and Change Management

• Establish and maintain project-level and portfolio-level risk registers.
• Identify technical, contractual, commercial, environmental, stakeholder, land, interface, safety, supply-chain, and schedule risks.
• Ensure timely mitigation, ownership, escalation, and reporting of material risks.
• Govern scope changes through structured assessment, authorization, implementation, and commercial recovery.
• Lead crisis response and executive resolution of significant project disruptions.

Stakeholder Management

• Serve as the senior point of contact for railway authorities, government departments, clients, consultants, funding agencies, joint-venture partners, and contractors.
• Build constructive relationships with local authorities, communities, utility agencies, landowners, and other affected stakeholders.
• Lead high-level progress reviews, negotiations, dispute-resolution meetings, and steering-committee presentations.
• Ensure timely resolution of approvals, land access, utility diversions, traffic blocks, permits, design interfaces, and third-party dependencies.
• Maintain clear, accurate, and transparent communication with executive leadership and clients.

Team Leadership

• Build and lead a multidisciplinary organization comprising project directors, project managers, engineering managers, planning professionals, commercial managers, safety leaders, quality teams, and site personnel.
• Define roles, authority levels, performance expectations, succession plans, and competency requirements.
• Recruit, mentor, and develop senior project leaders and technical specialists.
• Conduct performance reviews and address capability, conduct, or delivery gaps.
• Promote accountability, collaboration, inclusion, ethical conduct, and continuous improvement across project teams.
• Develop organizational capability for future railway projects and leadership succession.

Reporting and Governance

• Present consolidated project performance reports to executive management and the board.
• Establish dashboards covering progress, milestones, cost, cash flow, safety, quality, risks, claims, procurement, and resource utilization.
• Ensure reporting data is accurate, consistent, timely, and supported by project controls.
• Conduct periodic project assurance reviews, audits, and stage-gate assessments.
• Ensure lessons learned are documented and incorporated into subsequent projects.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Civil, Mechanical, Electrical, Electronics, Railway, or Transportation Engineering from a recognized institution.
• Master's degree in Engineering, Construction Management, Project Management, or Business Administration is preferred.
• Professional engineering registration or chartered status is desirable.
• PMP, PRINCE2, IPMA, or an equivalent project-management certification is preferred.
• Relevant railway-safety, contract-management, or systems-assurance certifications are advantageous.

Experience Requirements

• At least 20 years of progressive experience in railway, metro, transit, or major transportation infrastructure.
• At least 8-10 years in senior leadership positions such as Project Director, Program Director, Business Unit Head, or Head of Projects.
• Demonstrated responsibility for large, multidisciplinary railway projects or a portfolio of concurrent projects.
• Strong experience across the full project lifecycle, including tendering, design, procurement, construction, testing, commissioning, and handover.
• Proven record of managing major project budgets, contracts, claims, schedules, and cross-functional teams.
• Experience working with government railway organizations, public-sector clients, consultants, international contractors, and joint ventures.
• Experience in brownfield railway environments, live-line working, or operational railway interfaces is highly desirable.
• International project experience or experience under FIDIC, NEC, EPC, design-build, or public-private partnership contracts is advantageous.

Technical Knowledge

The ideal candidate should demonstrate strong knowledge of:

• Railway alignment, formation, trackwork, stations, depots, bridges, tunnels, and associated civil works.
• Signaling, train control, telecommunications, traction power, overhead electrification, and electrical systems.
• Systems engineering, requirements management, configuration control, RAMS, systems assurance, and interface management.
• Construction planning, cost control, earned-value management, and schedule analysis.
• Tendering, estimation, contract administration, claims management, and dispute resolution.
• Testing, commissioning, trial running, operational readiness, and asset handover.
• Railway safety standards, environmental obligations, quality systems, and statutory approvals.
• Project management platforms such as Primavera P6, Microsoft Project, ERP systems, document-control platforms, and BIM tools.

Leadership Competencies

• Strategic leadership: Converts organizational objectives into executable project and portfolio plans.
• Commercial acumen: Balances delivery requirements with profitability, cash flow, and contractual protection.
• Technical judgment: Makes sound decisions on complex multidisciplinary railway issues.
• Stakeholder influence: Builds trust and resolves competing priorities among senior stakeholders.
• Execution discipline: Maintains focus on safety, milestones, quality, cost, and outcomes.
• Crisis management: Responds decisively to delays, incidents, disputes, and operational disruptions.
• People leadership: Develops capable, accountable, and collaborative teams.
• Communication: Presents complex issues clearly to boards, clients, regulators, and project teams.
• Integrity: Demonstrates ethical judgment, transparency, and compliance in all commercial and operational matters.

Key Performance Indicators

Performance areaIndicative measuresScheduleMilestone achievement, schedule variance, recovery-plan effectivenessFinancialBudget variance, project margin, cash flow, billing and collectionSafetyIncident rates, audit scores, closure of corrective actionsQualityRework, non-conformances, inspection results, first-time acceptanceCommercialVariation recovery, claims resolution, contractual complianceClientSatisfaction, repeat business, issue-resolution timeDeliveryTesting success, commissioning readiness, timely handoverPeopleRetention, succession coverage, productivity, competency developmentRiskTimely mitigation and reduction of portfolio-level exposureGovernanceReporting accuracy, audit compliance, action closure

Working Conditions

• Extensive travel to project sites, client offices, vendor facilities, and government agencies.
• Ability to work in active railway environments and comply with site-specific medical and safety requirements.
• Availability for critical possessions, commissioning periods, emergency reviews, and executive negotiations outside standard working hours.
• Flexibility to manage geographically dispersed and multicultural teams.

Preferred Candidate Profile

The preferred candidate is a senior railway executive with a record of delivering large, technically complex, and commercially demanding projects. The individual should combine engineering depth with strong project controls, contractual expertise, stakeholder management, and people leadership.

Success in this role requires the ability to move confidently between board-level strategy and site-level execution while maintaining unwavering focus on safety, quality, schedule, cost, compliance, and client outcomes.