Planning Manager - Pre-Construction

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 

• 6+ years in programme or project controls roles within pre-construction, planning, or development phases of major infrastructure or property projects.
• Direct experience building and maintaining an integrated pre-construction programme spanning DA, design, permitting, and procurement — ideally across multiple concurrent projects.
• Experience tracking a project through to financial close, including familiarity with the reporting financial close readiness requires.
• Exposure to data centre, mission-critical, or comparably complex capital projects is highly regarded.
• Experience coordinating planning, permitting, and procurement consultants across more than one project or phase at a time.
• Comfortable producing structured handover documentation between project phases.

Skills 

• Proficiency in programme scheduling tools (Primavera P6 or MS Project) for multi-project pre-construction sequencing.
• Working knowledge of Queensland development application and permitting processes.
• Strong dashboarding and reporting tool skills for pre-construction pipeline status reporting.
• RACI-based governance design for a multi-consultant, multi-project pre-construction environment.
• Comfortable interpreting early-stage cost plans well enough to connect programme and cost reporting across multiple buildings.
• Clear written reporting — able to distil DA, design, and procurement status across several future buildings into a leadership-ready summary.

Desirable Qualifications and Professional Certification

• Bachelor’s degree in Construction Management, Planning, Engineering, or a related discipline.
• Project Management Professional (PMP), PRINCE2, or AIPM certification is highly regarded.
• Formal training in Primavera P6 or equivalent scheduling software.
• Familiarity with Queensland state-significant development application processes is advantageous.

Competencies 
Execution Mindset — Keeps every future building’s programme moving toward its own financial close, chasing closure on actions rather than letting any one building drift. 
Analytical Thinking — Spots the early signal — a slipping permitting condition, a stalled tender — on any building in the pipeline before it threatens a financial close date. 
Stakeholder Orientation — Keeps planning, permitting, and procurement consultants pulling in the same direction across several concurrent buildings. 
Adaptability — Re-sequences the pipeline quickly when one future building’s permitting pathway or design decision changes, without derailing the others. 
Integrity & Ethics — Reports financial close readiness honestly for every building, including when one is genuinely at risk. 
Collaboration — Works proactively with the Construction Delivery planning function to design each handover with no gaps, rather than treating pre-construction and delivery as separate worlds. 

The Planning Manager – Pre-Construction owns the integrated pre-construction programme for WDDP’s future-building pipeline and shared campus infrastructure, from current design and approvals status through procurement, financial close and construction mobilisation. This is a project-planning role and does not own the technical town-planning or permitting function. 

This role owns the integrated pre-construction programme across all future buildings and shared campus infrastructure, the governance cadence that runs it, and the tracking systems that make DA, permitting, design, and procurement status visible across a pipeline rather than a single project. 

Scope covers the remaining digital park and every future building from current status through design freeze, GC/OSE tender and procurement, and financial close — with each building handed to the Planning Manager – Construction Delivery function individually as it reaches construction mobilisation. The role reports to the Planning Leader – WDDP, working daily with teams across the Development Strategy, Site Permitting, Legal, Finance, Design, and Capital Project Controls. 

Success is a future-buildings pipeline that leadership can see clearly at every stage — each building tracked on its own path to financial close, shared campus infrastructure sequenced sensibly across them, and a clean, repeatable handover into construction delivery each time a building is ready to mobilise.

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. 

• Ensure safety requirements for early site activities (geotechnical investigation, survey, early access) are built into each future building’s pre-construction programme, not treated as an afterthought.
• Confirm safety-in-design principles are tracked as a programme milestone through design development for every future building, not left to construction to resolve.
• Support Site Permitting and Legal in ensuring statutory safety and environmental conditions are reflected in the programme and tracked to closure across the pipeline.
• Flag any pre-construction schedule pressure, on any future building, that risks compressing safety-in-design review time.
• Model safety-first behaviour in all site visits and consultant interactions.

Portfolio Programme Management & Delivery
This role builds and maintains the integrated pre-construction programme across the remaining digital park and every future building, sequencing DA, design, permitting, and procurement milestones for each toward its own financial close. 

• Build and maintain the integrated pre-construction master programme for the remaining digital park, covering DA determination, design development, permitting, and GC/OSE procurement for each future building.
• Track each future building’s progress against its own financial close target, flagging variances early and coordinating recovery plans with workstream owners.
• Maintain milestone trackers for design freeze, tender close, and permit issuance across the pipeline, providing early warning on any building at risk.
• Sequence shared campus infrastructure (masterplan-level works, common infrastructure, external works) across multiple future buildings so no single building’s programme is compromised by another’s dependencies.
• Own the structured handover of each future building’s programme to the Planning Manager – Construction Delivery function as it reaches financial close and construction mobilisation.
• Maintain document and drawing register discipline supporting design freeze and tender milestones across the pipeline.

Portfolio Coordination, Governance & Consultant Management
This role runs the governance cadence for the pre-construction pipeline — the forums that keep Development Strategy, Site Permitting, Design, and procurement aligned across multiple future buildings at once. 

• Design and run the pre-construction governance calendar: workstream syncs, monthly reporting, and risk reviews across the future-buildings pipeline.
• Produce the consolidated pre-construction status pack for the Planning Leader – WDDP, covering every future building’s progress toward financial close.
• Coordinate planning consultants, permitting trackers, and procurement advisers across the pipeline, ensuring outputs meet Zerra’s reporting standards.
• Maintain a single, current record of open actions and decisions across the DA, design, permitting, and procurement workstreams for every future building.
• Align pre-construction reporting templates and status definitions with the standard the Planning Leader – WDDP sets across both planning functions.

Site Permitting, Approvals & Regulatory Compliance
This role integrates the DA and permitting pathway for every future building into the master programme and keeps status visible to leadership. 

• Maintain a live DA and permitting tracker across the future-buildings pipeline, integrating statutory timeframes and conditions into each building’s programme.
• Coordinate with Site Permitting and Legal to reflect approval conditions and dependencies accurately across the pipeline.
• Provide early warning on permitting or approval risk that could affect any future building’s financial close date.
• Track state-significant project process requirements specific to Queensland and their programme implications across the digital park.

Enterprise Risk, Issues & Analytical Insights 
This role owns the pre-construction risk and issues register across the pipeline and turns programme data into insight the Planning Leader – WDDP can act on. 

• Maintain the pre-construction risk and issues register across every future building, ensuring each entry has an owner, mitigation, and review date.
• Run monthly risk reviews with workstream owners, escalating unmitigated risk to the Planning Leader – WDDP.
• Analyse programme data across the pipeline to flag emerging threats to any future building’s financial close date before they compound.
• Support lessons-learned capture at each major pre-construction milestone, feeding forward into future handovers to construction delivery.

Development & Capital Integration
This role connects each future building’s pre-construction programme to the cost and capital picture ahead of its financial close. 

• Align each future building’s pre-construction milestones with cost plan phasing maintained by Capital Project Controls.
• Flag programme slippage or acceleration, on any future building, that carries funding or financial close timing implications.
• Support Capital Project Controls and Finance with programme data needed for financial close readiness reporting across the pipeline.