Planning Leader

Zerra develops and operates hyperscale data centre campuses across Australia, Japan and India, delivering capacity at scale into markets driven by the growth of cloud and AI. Zerra's flexible campus developments support hyperscale and neocloud organisations, enabling some of the world's fastest-scaling technology businesses to grow with certainty and ambition. 

At Zerra, we empower exceptional people to challenge convention, drive innovation and make a real impact in digital infrastructure. Our culture fuses entrepreneurial agility with global expertise, enabling our teams to deliver results that matter. 

We believe that diverse perspectives, inclusive leadership and equitable opportunities are essential to building stronger teams and better outcomes. We are committed to fostering a workplace where everyone feels respected, supported and empowered to thrive. 

Zerra is part of AGP, an independently owned investor and asset manager that develops and operates real assets across the energy, digital and real estate sectors. 

Western Downs Digital Park 
Western Downs Digital Park (WDDP) is a master-planned digital and energy precinct in regional Queensland, developed and operated by Zerra. Planned across multiple delivery phases, WDDP brings together AI-ready data centres, energy infrastructure and a purpose-built campus environment. 

Located close to major power infrastructure within the Western Downs Special Industry Area, WDDP represents a major investment in Queensland's digital future and an opportunity to help deliver the critical infrastructure supporting the continued growth of cloud computing and artificial intelligence.  Experience 

• 12+ years of experience in project planning, scheduling or programme-controls leadership within major construction, infrastructure or mission-critical facility delivery.
• Direct experience leading the integrated programme on a mega-project, major capital development or complex multi-phase infrastructure programme.
• Proven experience leading and developing Planning Managers, senior planners and specialist scheduling consultants.
• Experience designing a governance framework and handover protocol that scales as new phases or assets enter delivery.
• Data centre, mission-critical, or comparably complex multi-asset infrastructure experience is highly regarded.
• Experience producing consolidated, executive-facing programme and risk reporting across multiple workstreams or assets.
• Australian construction delivery experience, ideally Queensland, is an advantage.

Skills

• Advanced proficiency in programme scheduling tools (Primavera P6 or MS Project) at master-programme, multi-asset scale.
• Strong dashboarding and reporting tool skills (Power BI, Smartsheet, or equivalent) for executive-facing status packs.
• Governance framework design across multiple concurrent projects, phases, and reporting lines.
• Team leadership and coaching skills, particularly around handover and cross-building escalation discipline.
• Working knowledge of cost-plan phasing sufficient to align schedule and capital reporting, while operating within a structure where the Commercial Leader owns cost and commercial controls.
• Strong risk register consolidation and schedule risk analysis skills.
• Clear executive reporting — able to distil a multi-building, multi-stage programme into a single leadership-ready narrative.

Desirable Qualifications and Professional Certification 

• Bachelor’s degree in Construction Management, Engineering, or a related discipline.
• Project Management Professional (PMP), PRINCE2, or AIPM certification is highly regarded.
• Postgraduate qualification in Project Management or Construction Management is advantageous.
• Formal training in Primavera P6 or equivalent scheduling software.

Competencies 
Execution Mindset — Keeps the master programme trustworthy across every building on the campus, not just the one currently under construction. 
Analytical Thinking — Sees the pattern across both planning functions’ data — resourcing contention, repeated delay drivers — that neither manager would spot working in isolation. 
Stakeholder Orientation — Gives the Executive Project Director one clear picture instead of competing building-level views. 
Adaptability — Redesigns the handover protocol and planning structure as new future buildings enter the pipeline, without losing programme continuity on the leased building. 
Integrity & Ethics — Surfaces cross-building risk honestly, even when it means admitting a handover plan or resourcing model needs to change. 
Leadership — Builds one PMO culture across pre-construction and delivery, holding both managers to the same standard of rigour and escalation discipline as the campus scales.  The Planning Leader is the senior planning authority for the whole WDDP campus — both the leased building currently in construction delivery and the pre-construction pipeline of remaining digital park infrastructure and future buildings. The role gives the Executive Project Director one coherent, trustworthy view of programme, schedule, dependencies, risk and delivery performance across every stage of the campus. 

This role owns the campus-wide planning and schedule governance framework, the integrated master programme that consolidates the leased building’s construction programme with the future buildings’ pre-construction programmes, and the consolidated programme risk and performance reporting provided to the Executive Project Director. It does not own construction delivery decisions, cost planning, contracts, forecasting, variations or commercial controls; those accountabilities sit with the Construction Delivery Lead and Commercial Leader respectively. 

Scope spans the full campus lifecycle: the leased building through construction and handover, and the remaining digital park and future buildings through masterplanning, design, permitting and procurement toward financial close and construction mobilisation. The role leads WDDP’s planning function and is the primary planning and programme interface for the Executive Project Director, Construction Delivery Lead, Commercial Leader, Design and Legal. 

Success is a campus that leadership can see clearly regardless of how many buildings or phases are active at once — one planning standard, one integrated master programme and a planning structure that scales cleanly as future buildings move from pre-construction into delivery.

Responsibilities 
Safety Leadership (Injury & Incident Free) 
This role carries personal accountability for maintaining an Injury & Incident Free (IIF) environment across all activities, teams, and sites it influences. 

• Set the expectation, across the planning function, that safety sequencing and safety-in-design review are never compressed for programme convenience — on the leased building or on any future building.
• Ensure safety readiness and safety-in-design milestones carry consistently from pre-construction into construction as each future building progresses, with no gap at handover.
• Own consolidated safety performance and leading indicator reporting alongside programme and risk status for the Executive Project Director.
• Escalate immediately any resequencing decision, on any building, that could compromise safety standards.
• Model safety-first behaviour in all site visits, governance forums, and leadership reporting.

Portfolio Programme Management & Delivery 
This role owns the integrated master programme covering the whole WDDP campus — the leased building in delivery and every future building in the pre-construction pipeline — and sets the planning standards, assurance approach and resourcing model used as the campus grows. 

• Own the campus-wide master programme, integrating the leased building’s construction programme with the pre-construction programmes for the remaining digital park and future buildings
• Design and own the handover protocol each future building follows as it moves from pre-construction into construction delivery, ensuring the transition is repeatable rather than bespoke each time.
• Set the programme and reporting standards for the planning teams work, so status, milestone, and risk reporting are directly comparable across every building regardless of stage.
• Review and challenge both the planning teams programme updates before they reach the Executive Project Director, ensuring the master schedule reflects reality across the whole campus.
• Decide how the planning function itself needs to scale — structure, resourcing, tooling — as additional future buildings enter the pre-construction pipeline.
• Own escalation and resolution of any cross-building interdependency (shared campus infrastructure, sequencing conflicts, resourcing contention) that individual Planning Managers cannot resolve at their level.

Portfolio Coordination, Governance & Consultant Management 
This role owns the planning and schedule governance architecture for WDDP, setting the standards that both planning functions and their consultants apply as the campus scales across multiple buildings and phases. 

• Design and own the campus-wide project governance framework, ensuring pre-construction and construction governance cadences connect as each future building transitions between them.
• Produce the consolidated master programme and status report for the Executive Project Director, drawing on Planning Managers’ inputs.
• Set and enforce common reporting templates, status definitions, and tools across both planning functions so leadership sees one consistent picture regardless of how many buildings are active.
• Chair the senior governance forum where cross-building issues, risks, and decisions are resolved.
• Oversee scheduling and reporting consultants engaged across either function, ensuring consistent quality and standards as the planning structure scales.

Enterprise Risk, Issues & Analytical Insights 
This role owns the consolidated programme risk and schedule-risk view across the whole campus, synthesising inputs from both Planning Managers into one clear picture for leadership. 

• Own the consolidated risk and issues register across the leased building and the future buildings pipeline, integrating inputs from both Planning Managers into a single, current view.
• Chair monthly risk reviews spanning both functions, ensuring risks are owned, mitigated, and escalated consistently regardless of which building or PMO surfaced them.
• Analyse programme and risk trends across the full campus to identify systemic issues — resourcing contention, repeated permitting delays, shared-infrastructure risk — that a single-building view would miss.
• Provide the Executive Project Director with clear, evidence-based reporting on campus-wide programme certainty and risk exposure.

Development & Capital Integration 
This role ensures the master programme is aligned with the capital and funding picture supplied by the Commercial Leader and Finance across every building and phase. The Planning Leader integrates the schedule implications but does not own the cost plan, forecast or commercial position. 

• Align the master programme with capital forecasting and funding timelines across both the leased building’s construction spend and future buildings’ pre-construction and financial close readiness.
• Provide the Executive Project Director and Finance with a consolidated view of programme certainty and its capital implications across the whole campus.
• Ensure programme assumptions used in ExCom and investment reporting are current, traceable, and consistent across every building and planning function.

People & Culture 
This role leads two Planning Managers directly, setting the standard for how programme management is practised across the campus as it scales. 

• Lead and develop the planning function scaling team setting clear expectations for programme discipline and reporting quality.
• Coach team members on managing building-to-building handovers and on escalating cross-building issues rather than working around them.
• Build a planning function that operates as one team across pre-construction and delivery, not two disconnected functions that happen to share a line manager.
• Plan PMO resourcing and capability ahead of future buildings entering the pre-construction pipeline, so the function scales before it is under strain.

AI, Digital & Productivity Enablement 
This role owns the planning systems, scheduling toolset and programme-reporting standards used across the campus. 

• Set the scheduling and reporting platform standard both planning functions use, ensuring data structures stay compatible as future buildings transition into construction delivery.
• Build the consolidated dashboard the Executive Project Director uses for campus-wide programme visibility.
• Identify opportunities to automate reporting and status compilation across both planning functions, reducing duplicated effort as the number of active buildings grows.