Project Executive

Melink Solar is a nationally recognized leader in commercial solar EPC (Engineering, Procurement, and Construction) services and has been the Midwest’s #1 Commercial Solar EPC since 2023. We are seeking a highly experienced Project Executive (PJE) to provide executive leadership and operational oversight for all Commercial & Industrial (C&I) solar projects across the organization.

The Project Executive reports directly to the Director of Operations and serves as the senior operational authority responsible for the successful execution, financial performance, customer satisfaction, safety, quality, schedule performance, and risk management of the company’s C&I project portfolio. This role provides leadership across project management operations while ensuring alignment between field execution, customer expectations, financial objectives, estimating strategy, customer advocacy, and organizational goals.

The Project Executive will directly lead and manage all Associate Project Managers while providing oversight, mentorship, and operational guidance across the broader project delivery organization. This individual will work closely with executive leadership, construction operations, engineering, estimating, procurement, commissioning, finance, sales, marketing, business development, safety, and quality teams to drive consistent execution excellence and scalable operational performance.

The ideal candidate is a highly strategic and operationally disciplined leader with deep EPC project delivery experience, strong commercial acumen, and the ability to lead large project portfolios in a fast-paced growth environment. This individual must be highly accountable, self-motivated, competitive, conscientious, goal-oriented, and capable of operating with a strong sense of urgency and ownership. The successful candidate must embrace the principles of extreme ownership by taking full responsibility for project outcomes, team performance, customer satisfaction, operational execution, and organizational success.

Key Responsibilities
Executive Project Portfolio Leadership

• Maintain executive ownership and accountability for the successful execution of all Commercial & Industrial (C&I) solar EPC projects.
• Oversee portfolio-wide performance related to safety, quality, schedule, customer satisfaction, profitability, and operational execution.
• Provide executive leadership throughout all project phases including pre-construction, engineering coordination, procurement, construction, commissioning, turnover, and warranty transition.
• Establish and maintain operational standards, project governance procedures, and execution expectations across the project organization.
• Serve as the executive escalation point for major project, customer, subcontractor, commercial, or operational issues.

Financial & Commercial Ownership

• Maintain full P&L responsibility for the C&I project portfolio.
• Drive portfolio profitability through strong forecasting, cost management, subcontractor strategy, risk mitigation, and operational efficiency.
• Review and approve major project budgets, cost forecasts, contingency utilization, and cost-to-complete projections.
• Lead commercial strategy regarding change orders, claims management, schedule recovery, and contract risk mitigation.
• Maintain executive oversight and accountability for all project change order management activities including evaluation, acceptance, rejection, pricing validation, risk assessment, negotiation support, and execution alignment.
• Ensure change orders are appropriately and fairly assigned to the responsible party including customer-driven scope changes, Melink Solar execution impacts, design or engineering changes, subcontractor-driven impacts, schedule disruptions, or other project-related causes.
• Support the development, negotiation, tracking, documentation, and resolution of customer and subcontractor change orders to ensure commercial protection and operational alignment.
• Ensure accurate revenue forecasting, margin protection, and financial reporting across all active projects.
• Ensure all project milestones, progress billings, schedule of value items, and contractual invoicing requirements are accurately tracked, completed, and billed to customers in a timely manner to support healthy and consistent organizational cash flow.
• Collaborate closely with finance and project management teams to support accounts receivable performance, billing accuracy, invoice timing, and overall project cash management.
• Collaborate with finance and executive leadership regarding project financial performance and operational forecasting.
• Coordinate closely with the estimating team to refine, validate, and continuously improve project budgeting assumptions, labor models, production rates, subcontractor pricing strategies, execution methodologies, contingency structures, and operational cost forecasting for future C&I project bids.
• Provide operational feedback and lessons learned from active and completed projects to support estimating accuracy, bid competitiveness, and margin protection.

Customer & Relationship Management

• Serve as the executive-level customer representative for strategic accounts and major projects.
• Maintain ownership of customer satisfaction and long-term customer relationship health across the C&I portfolio.
• Lead executive project reviews, customer escalation meetings, commercial negotiations, and strategic discussions.
• Support business development and preconstruction teams by providing operational input, constructability guidance, execution strategy recommendations, and delivery planning.
• Ensure customer expectations are proactively managed and aligned throughout project execution.
• Partner closely with Sales and Marketing teams to ensure successful projects are properly documented, highlighted, and showcased to support customer advocacy, company branding, market positioning, case studies, reference development, and future business opportunities.
• Support customer relationship development initiatives by helping identify and cultivate highly satisfied customers for testimonials, referrals, repeat business opportunities, and strategic partnerships.

Operational Oversight & Execution Excellence

• Ensure consistent execution standards across project management, field operations, subcontractor coordination, and project controls.
• Drive accountability for project schedule performance, quality standards, documentation, reporting, and operational execution.
• Oversee project health reviews, schedule reviews, forecasting reviews, and operational performance metrics.
• Lead organizational initiatives focused on operational scalability, standardization, and continuous improvement.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with engineering, procurement, safety, quality, commissioning, estimating, construction leadership, sales, and marketing teams to improve execution efficiency and project outcomes.
• Assist in developing standardized project execution assumptions and operational best practices to support scalable project delivery and accurate bid development.

Subcontractor & Contract Governance

• Lead subcontractor strategy, procurement coordination, and subcontractor performance oversight across the C&I portfolio.
• Review and approve subcontractor agreements, scopes of work, commercial terms, and major procurement commitments.
• Review and approve subcontractor scopes of work (SOW), contractual obligations, and execution requirements to ensure operational and commercial alignment.
• Ensure subcontractor risk exposure is appropriately managed through contract structure, execution oversight, and operational controls.
• Support resolution of subcontractor disputes, performance deficiencies, and commercial negotiations.

Risk Management

• Ensure project-specific risk management plans are developed, maintained, and actively managed throughout the project lifecycle.
• Oversee mitigation strategies related to commercial risk, operational risk, schedule risk, subcontractor risk, customer obligations, procurement exposure, and execution challenges.
• Evaluate and proactively address project risks that could impact safety, quality, schedule, profitability, customer relationships, or company reputation.
• Support development of recovery plans, mitigation strategies, contingency planning, and contractual protections for at-risk projects.
• Collaborate with executive leadership, finance, legal, and operations teams to manage organizational project exposure and commercial risk.

Safety & Compliance

• Champion a proactive safety culture and reinforce organizational safety expectations across all projects.
• Maintain executive accountability for portfolio-wide project safety performance and safety compliance.
• Ensure compliance with OSHA requirements, contractual obligations, company procedures, customer standards, and applicable regulatory requirements.
• Support and reinforce field safety initiatives, training expectations, incident prevention efforts, and corrective action implementation.
• Collaborate closely with safety leadership, construction management, subcontractors, and field personnel to continuously improve safety performance and reduce operational risk exposure.

Quality Assurance & Quality Control

• Maintain executive accountability for portfolio-wide quality performance across all C&I projects.
• Ensure company quality assurance and quality control (QA/QC) procedures, standards, inspections, documentation requirements, and execution processes are consistently implemented and adhered to across all projects.
• Collaborate closely with the company’s Quality Department, field teams, subcontractors, engineering, and construction leadership to drive continuous quality improvement initiatives.
• Ensure the operational feedback loop between project execution teams and the Quality Department is fully closed on all identified quality concerns, corrective actions, process improvements, lessons learned, and requested QC updates or procedural changes.
• Ensure all requested quality control process updates, field modifications, procedural adjustments, and corrective action initiatives issued by the Quality Department are properly implemented and executed throughout the project organization.
• Support identification, tracking, resolution, and prevention of recurring quality deficiencies, punch list trends, installation inconsistencies, and workmanship concerns.
• Promote a culture of execution excellence, craftsmanship, accountability, and continuous improvement throughout all project delivery activities.

Leadership & Team Development

• Serve as the direct line manager for all Associate Project Managers.
• Lead, mentor, and develop project management personnel while fostering a culture of accountability, professionalism, operational excellence, and continuous improvement.
• Support workforce planning, organizational structure development, hiring, onboarding, and performance management activities within the project management organization.
• Develop future project leadership talent and succession planning initiatives.
• Provide support to Senior Project Managers and broader project delivery personnel.

Strategic Leadership

• Partner with the Director of Operations and executive leadership to support long-term operational strategy, organizational scalability, and process maturity initiatives.
• Support development of standardized project delivery systems, reporting structures, KPI tracking, and operational governance tools.
• Stay current with solar industry trends, construction methodologies, contractual practices, and emerging technologies.
• Assist in evaluating organizational risks, market opportunities, and strategic operational improvements.
• Support the continuous refinement of company-wide project execution standards, estimating assumptions, and operational delivery strategies to improve scalability and long-term profitability.
• Assist in strengthening Melink Solar’s market reputation through consistent project execution excellence, customer satisfaction, and successful project delivery outcomes.

Required Qualifications

• Exceptional leadership, communication, organizational, and executive presentation skills.
• Extensive experience managing large-scale EPC project portfolios and cross-functional operational teams.
• Strong understanding of project finance, forecasting, contracts, scheduling, subcontractor management, operational risk management, estimating methodologies, change order management, quality management systems, and customer relationship management.
• Proven success leading customer-facing project organizations in commercial construction or solar EPC environments.
• Strong commercial negotiation and decision-making capabilities.
• Demonstrated ability to lead organizational change and operational improvement initiatives.
• Must be highly accountable, self-motivated, competitive, conscientious, disciplined, and goal-oriented.
• Must demonstrate strong ownership mentality and the ability to operate with urgency, initiative, and accountability in high-responsibility environments.
• Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Office Suite, Microsoft Project, Smartsheet, ERP systems (Sage preferred), and project controls platforms.

Education & Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Construction Management, Business, or related field preferred.
• Minimum of 6+ years of experience within solar EPC, renewable energy, or commercial construction industries.
• PMP certification highly preferred.
• NABCEP certification highly preferred.
• Electrical, engineering, field operations, estimating, quality, or construction management background required.

Travel Requirements

• Up to 35% travel required for project oversight, customer engagement, operational leadership, business development support, and strategic organizational initiatives.

Physical Requirements

• Ability to traverse active construction sites in varying terrain and weather conditions.
• Ability to walk, climb, bend, kneel, reach, and occasionally lift up to 50 pounds.
• Exposure to standard construction site conditions and hazards.