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Shahriar Nilkar
Project Manager · PMO & Digital Infrastructure Delivery

Someone has to hold the date. Someone has to make the information outlive the project. On my programs that is the same person.

No password. It opens into a desktop, so have a look around.
Project DriverGovernance GuardianAI Adopter

Highlights

AI Hub
Delivered company-wide @ PCL
Designed the information architecture behind it, launched on schedule
22
Domain business taxonomy
Six governance capability categories · 2025–2027 AI-readiness roadmap
−25%
Change orders
Project controls instituted on a national water-research data-centre program
$35M
Feasibility & tender lead
CAPEX/OPEX model, two-package RFP, 4 of 11 shortlisted, $33M award recommendation
−30%
Review scope
Risk-based analysis across 3,000+ documents, plus the escalation dashboards
+40%
Audit readiness
PCL Connects 5.0 · IA standardized across 30+ teams, 13,000+ documents
27
Districts, one KPI framework
Strategic-plan and Salesforce reporting unified for executive decisions
−50%
Document search time
Firm-wide SharePoint hub · tickets −20% · 40+ engineers trained

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About

Project Manager

I run delivery and governance as one job. The project gets charters, a RACI, a risk register and someone accountable for the date. The information it produces gets a taxonomy, an owner and a retention rule. Most change orders start as an information problem, which is why I stopped treating those as two roles.

That work has been in engineering and construction, digital infrastructure, and higher education. SharePoint and Microsoft 365 governance, taxonomies and metadata models, reporting in Power BI and SQL, and projects run end to end through planning, stakeholder engagement and change management.

I build with AI as well as govern it. Agentic workflows, generative assistants, no-code automation. The governance is what makes any of it safe to adopt at scale, so I do both halves.

Master of Digital Transformation and Innovation, with PMP-aligned project management training.

Open Where I Fit for the five lanes, Case Files for the stories, Experience for the record.

Where I Fit

Five things I get held accountable for. Filter by the job you're hiring for.

$33Maward recommendation11 bidders scored to 4
$1M+annual spend oversightPCL Connects 5.0
25%fewer change orderscontrols layer, MEWE PMO
40%audit readiness gain13,000+ docs, 30+ teams
30%less review scoperisk scoring, 3,000+ docs
20%less schedule slippage10+ teams, Peyvareh
Business Development & Capital Decisions

Accountable for the evidence an owner commits money on, and the recommendation at the end of it.

  • $35M CAPEX membrane plant: the feasibility study and CAPEX/OPEX model the owner's investment decision rested on
  • Structured it as a two-package RFP, scored 11 bidders down to 4, delivered a $33M award recommendation
  • Procurement and tendering across 5+ concurrent projects at MEWE. Proposals, tender packages, and cost, schedule and quality negotiated with clients and contractors
  • Wrote the business case for PCL's Content Governance App, now used team-wide
Feasibility studiesCAPEX / OPEX modellingRFP developmentBid evaluationContract negotiationBusiness casesSponsor alignment
Fits: Business Development Manager · Tender Lead · Feasibility & Business Case Lead · Commercial Manager
Digital Transformation & Platform Delivery

Accountable for an enterprise platform reaching production, and for the adoption that decides whether it was worth building.

  • MEWE: designed the structure, permissions and rules of one access-controlled SharePoint and Dynamics 365 environment covering sponsor, contractors and consultants
  • Peyvareh: rolled out the firm-wide SharePoint hub and trained 40+ engineers and coordinators. Search time down nearly 50%, tickets down 20%
  • University of Ottawa: audited 11 faculties against the Vision 2030 roadmap, built a central application inventory in TopDesk, licence overlap down 35%
  • PCL Connects 5.0: Microsoft 365 modernization across 13,000+ documents, $1M+ annual spend
Microsoft 365SharePointDynamics 365Common data environmentsChange managementTraining & adoptionRequirementsUAT
Fits: Digital Transformation Manager · Program Manager, M365 · Platform Delivery Manager · Change & Adoption Lead
Information Governance & AI Readiness

Accountable for the taxonomy, metadata, permissions and retention that decide whether content can be found and trusted.

  • PCL's enterprise information-governance architecture: a 22-domain business taxonomy, six governance capability categories, a 2025-2027 roadmap
  • Co-developed PCL's company-wide AI Hub with an external AI consultant, proposing and designing the information architecture it retrieves against, and delivering the launch on schedule
  • Engineered agentic AI workflows, plan-build-evaluate-refine loops with feedback checkpoints, to gather requirements, rule out duplicate tooling and ship v1 of an internal Site Mapping platform through rapid prototyping
  • Review scope cut 30% across 3,000+ documents by scoring risk instead of reading everything, plus the escalation framework and remediation dashboards
  • Peyvareh: content types, managed metadata, permissions and retention built from zero. Nilpay: a searchable archive with naming conventions and audit support
Business taxonomyMetadata standardsInformation architectureRetention & lifecyclePermissionsFAIR dataRisk-based analysisAgentic workflowsRapid prototypingMicrosoft Purview concepts
Fits: Information Governance Lead · Enterprise Information Architect · AI Program Manager · Records & Information Manager
Project Controls & PMO

Accountable for the controls that hold a multi-party program to schedule and scope, and the reporting that shows when they aren't holding.

  • Change orders down 25% at MEWE once the controls layer was in place: charters, communication plans, RACI charts, risk registers, risk matrices, dependency tracking
  • Led feasibility and stakeholder management from a joint integrated project delivery (IPD) PMO on a national water-research data-centre program
  • Peyvareh: schedule slippage down 20% across 10+ teams after refining how scheduling and planning were reported
  • PCL: keeps the enterprise rollout on schedule across 25 business areas, 16 fully transitioned with an accountable content owner each, coordinating 12+ corporate topic leads and SharePoint developers
ChartersRACIRisk registersPhase gatesDependency trackingPortfolio dashboardsAgile / hybridMS ProjectJiraAzure DevOpsSmartsheet
Fits: Project Manager · PMO Lead · Program Manager · Project Controls Lead
Decision Intelligence & Reporting

Accountable for defining the measures leadership decides on, and building the layer that produces them.

  • A 27-district marketing KPI and pipeline intelligence framework at PCL, unifying strategic-plan and Salesforce reporting into one governed source of truth
  • Set the KPI definitions and settled who owns each number before anyone built a report on it, then took that through all 27 districts
  • Peyvareh: automated Excel and Power BI over ERP data into forecasts and KPI dashboards for leadership
  • Nilpay: an in-house Microsoft Access inventory system with access tracking and audit support
KPI framework designPipeline reportingSalesforce reportingPower BITableauSQLPythonExcel / VBAExecutive dashboardsForecasting
Fits: Business Intelligence Lead · Reporting & Analytics Manager · Marketing Performance Manager · Revenue Operations
Outside the five

Credentials don't belong in a lane, so they sit here. Master of Digital Transformation and Innovation, University of Ottawa, concentrating in IT strategy, enterprise architecture and data-driven innovation. BSc IT Engineering, Sharif University of Technology. Project management training on a PMP-aligned curriculum, University of Ottawa and PMPiran, 2021-2024. English fluent, French at A1 and moving.

Technical enough to build the thing rather than brief someone else to. SQL and Python for the data work, TOGAF and capability mapping for the architecture, and this website is hand-written HTML, CSS and JavaScript with no framework, which you are welcome to read.

Experience

Project manager, 8+ years across digital infrastructure, engineering and construction, and higher education. Click a role to open it.

Aug 2025 → now
Senior Digital Communications Specialist, Information Governance & Project Delivery
PCL Construction
22-domain taxonomy and a 2025–2027 AI-readiness roadmap · 25 business areas · $1M+ annual spend
  • Drives the enterprise information-governance architecture that prepares PCL’s content for AI: a 22-domain business taxonomy, six governance capability categories, and a 2025–2027 roadmap
  • Co-developed PCL’s company-wide AI Hub with an external AI consultant, proposing and designing its information architecture and delivering the launch on schedule
  • Engineered agentic AI workflows, plan-build-evaluate-refine loops with feedback checkpoints, to gather requirements, rule out duplicate tooling, and ship v1 of an internal Site Mapping platform through rapid prototyping
  • Coordinates 12+ corporate topic leads and SharePoint developers across 25 business areas, 16 fully transitioned and each with an accountable content owner, to keep the enterprise rollout on schedule
  • Built a 27-district marketing KPI and pipeline intelligence framework, unifying strategic-plan and Salesforce reporting into one governed source of truth for executive decisions
  • Cut review scope 30% across 3,000+ documents through risk-based information analysis, and built the escalation framework and dashboards leadership uses for remediation
  • Carries $1M+ of annual spend on PCL Connects 5.0, with information architecture standardized across 30+ teams
SharePointMicrosoft 365SalesforcePower BITaxonomyAI readinessAgentic workflowsRapid prototyping
Oct 2023 → Feb 2025
Senior Technology Project & Business Development Lead, PMO
Middle East Water & Environment (MEWE) · Tehran
Change orders down 25% · procurement across 5+ concurrent projects
  • Reduced change orders 25% by instituting the program's project controls: charters, communication plans, RACI charts, risk registers, risk matrices, cross-team dependency tracking
  • Structured a two-package RFP tender on a $35M CAPEX plant, scored 11 bidders down to 4, and delivered a $33M award recommendation
  • Negotiated cost, schedule and quality with clients and contractors across 5+ concurrent projects, writing the proposals and tender packages behind them
  • Led feasibility and stakeholder management from the joint integrated project delivery (IPD) PMO, aligning the sponsor and contractors on a national water-research data-centre program
  • Designed the structure, permissions and rules of one access-controlled SharePoint / Dynamics 365 common data environment covering sponsor, contractors and consultants
  • Translated field and office workflows into system requirements through cross-functional workshops and user acceptance testing
SharePointDynamics 365RFP / tenderingRisk registersIPD PMOUAT
Mar 2020 → Oct 2023
Senior IT & Business Intelligence Lead
Peyvareh Engineering & Construction Co. · Tehran
Schedule slippage down 20% across 10+ teams · search time down ~50%
  • Rebuilt how project scheduling and planning were reported across 10+ teams on two major projects; the gaps that surfaced cut schedule slippage 20%
  • Established information governance from the ground up: content types, managed metadata, permissions and retention rules that gave dispersed teams one trusted source
  • Rolled out the firm-wide SharePoint hub, training 40+ engineers and coordinators. Search time fell nearly 50%, support tickets 20%
  • Automated Excel and Power BI reporting, turning ERP data into forecasts and KPI dashboards for leadership
Power BIExcel · VBASharePointManaged metadataERP data
May 2019 → Feb 2020
IT Business Analyst, Office of the CIO
University of Ottawa · Ottawa, ON
Licence overlap down 35% across 11 faculties
  • Built a central application inventory in TopDesk with the Application Manager that cut licence overlap 35%, handling confidential licensing data under institutional privacy obligations
  • Led consultations with 11 academic faculties auditing application portfolios against the Vision 2030 consolidation roadmap, flagging duplication and renewal risk
  • Ran stakeholder interviews and working sessions, translating service pain points into documented functional requirements
TopDeskApplication portfolioRequirementsExcel
Apr 2015 → Sep 2018
Business Analyst
Nilpay Engineering & Construction Co. · Tehran

Where the habit started. He built an in-house Microsoft Access inventory system and a searchable document archive, with naming conventions, access tracking and audit support for compliance reviews. Ten years later he is doing the same thing for thirteen thousand documents, which tells you something about what he finds interesting.

Case Files

Six cases. Situation, what I owned, what I did, what came out.

Membrane Manufacturing Plant: feasibility to award recommendation
Feasibility & Tender Lead · MEWE, for owner Asia Water Co. · Bandar Abbas · 2024-2025 · $35M estimated CAPEX
Situation

Asia Water Co. was weighing a membrane manufacturing plant at roughly $35M CAPEX. No feasibility case existed, and no procurement route had been chosen.

What I owned

The pre-investment case and the route to market: documented ground for a $35M commitment, ending in one award recommendation.

What I did

Ran the feasibility study and built the CAPEX/OPEX model the investment decision rested on. Researched vendors and procurement methods. Structured the work as a two-package RFP tender, wrote the packages, then ran the evaluation that took 11 bidders down to a shortlist of 4.

Result

A $33M award recommendation delivered, and an owner able to sign against a documented CAPEX/OPEX model.

PCL Connects 5.0: one information architecture across 30+ teams
Project & Governance Lead · PCL Construction · 2025 to now · $1M+ annual spend · 13,000+ documents
Situation

A Microsoft 365 modernization covering 13,000+ documents and 3,000+ pages across 25 business areas, with each team structuring content its own way.

What I owned

One information architecture across 30+ teams, and the governance that makes PCL content usable by AI.

What I did

Built a 22-domain business taxonomy, six governance capability categories and a 2025-2027 roadmap. Restructured content and information-management processes against new corporate directives. Scored documents by risk instead of reviewing everything. Authored the templated guidelines teams operate from and ran the change management behind them, working decisions through 12+ corporate topic leads and SharePoint developers.

Result

Audit readiness up 40%. Review scope cut 30% across 3,000+ documents, with the escalation framework and dashboards leadership uses. The Content Governance App I made the case for is now used team-wide.

National water-research data-centre program: controls and one data environment
Senior Technology Project & Business Development Lead, PMO · MEWE, Tehran · Oct 2023 to Feb 2025 · joint IPD PMO
Situation

Sponsor, contractors and consultants delivering a national water-research data-centre program from a joint integrated project delivery PMO, each holding their own version of the record.

What I owned

The controls layer, and one environment the whole delivery chain could work from.

What I did

Wrote the charters, communication plans and RACI charts, stood up risk registers and risk matrices, and tracked dependencies across teams. Designed the structure, permissions and rules of an access-controlled SharePoint and Dynamics 365 common data environment, then turned field and office workflows into system requirements through cross-functional workshops and user acceptance testing.

Result

Change orders down 25% once the controls layer was in place. Sponsor, contractors and consultants working off one access-controlled record, with permissions set by role.

27 districts, one KPI and pipeline framework
Senior Digital Communications Specialist (Information Governance & Project Delivery) · PCL Construction · 2025 to now
Situation

Strategic-plan reporting and Salesforce pipeline data lived apart. Twenty-seven districts described performance in numbers that didn't compare, and executives decided without a shared figure.

What I owned

The measurement layer. One definition per metric, a named owner behind each number, one source executives could decide from.

What I did

Unified strategic-plan reporting and Salesforce pipeline data into a single framework, defined the KPI set and the pipeline measures under it, and settled who owns each number before anyone built a report on it. Then took those definitions through all 27 districts.

Result

One governed source of truth across 27 districts, used for executive decisions. Marketing and pursuit performance now reads the same way everywhere, against definitions with names attached.

Firm-wide SharePoint hub, governance built from zero
Senior IT & Business Intelligence Lead · Peyvareh Engineering & Construction, Tehran · Mar 2020 to Oct 2023 · 10+ teams
Situation

Teams on two major projects kept documents wherever they landed. No content types, no managed metadata, no retention, no agreed permissions.

What I owned

Making documents findable and keeping them that way, which meant governance first and a platform people would actually use.

What I did

Established information governance from the ground up: content types, managed metadata, permissions, retention rules. Rolled out the firm-wide SharePoint hub and trained 40+ engineers and coordinators. Alongside it, refined how scheduling and planning were reported across 10+ teams and automated Excel and Power BI over ERP data into forecasts and KPI dashboards.

Result

Document search time down nearly 50%. Support tickets down 20%. The reporting gaps that surfaced cut schedule slippage 20% on the same two projects.

PCL AI Hub: company-wide launch
Senior Digital Communications Specialist (Information Governance & Project Delivery) · PCL Construction · 2025 · with an external AI consultant
Situation

PCL wanted a company-wide AI hub. Whatever it retrieved would only be as good as the structure underneath it, and that structure wasn't settled.

What I owned

The proposal, the information architecture the hub retrieves against, and the launch date.

What I did

Proposed the hub, designed its information architecture, and tied it to the governance already in flight: the 22-domain taxonomy, the six capability categories, the 2025-2027 roadmap. Ran delivery with the external AI consultant against the date.

Result

Launched on schedule, company-wide, retrieving against the same taxonomy PCL's content is being restructured to. No separate rulebook for the AI.

This site is the seventh one. Browser desktop, window manager, tiling, a classification game and an assistant on a serverless backend. Plain HTML, CSS and vanilla JavaScript.

Resume

> static_resume.pdf ........ deprecated
> live_profile.linkedin .... active ●

No PDF here. the LinkedIn profile is the one I actually keep up to date.

Open LinkedIn Profile

linkedin.com/in/shahriar-nilkar

ShahGPT · ask about the record

Answers trace to his resume.AI may hallucinate, so answers are not 100% accurate

nilkar@pop-os: ~
Scope Call

You have a 96-day project, a hard deadline on day 120, and a stream of change requests that bleed the delivery date for as long as you leave them unread. Clear each one three ways.

APPROVE spends budget and it goes away clean
REJECT spends stakeholder goodwill and it goes away clean
DEFER is free now, bleeds at half rate, and returns bigger

Goodwill is not a health bar. It sets the size of all three contingency releases, so saying no is cheap today and expensive by day 78.
We Before Me

Nothing here shipped solo. The people-side of the work:

12+ SMEs · product owners · developersPCL
Across 25 business areas, with decisions and action items tracked so the enterprise SharePoint modernization stays on schedule.
Sponsor · contractors · consultantsMEWE
Aligned from a joint IPD PMO onto one access-controlled common data environment. Workflows became requirements through workshops and user acceptance testing.
40+ engineers & coordinatorsPeyvareh
Trained through the SharePoint hub rollout. Tickets fell 20% because people, not just systems, were ready.
11 academic facultiesuOttawa
Consultations and working sessions across campus turned service pain points into documented functional requirements.

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