Senior Contract Governance Specialist

🏗 We're Hiring: Senior Contract Governance Specialist
Location: United Arab Emirates (Remote)
Employment Type: Full-Time
Experience Level: Mid-Level to Senior
Work Arrangement: Fully Remote
About Us
We are a construction-focused organization committed to delivering complex projects through disciplined contract management, operational excellence, and collaborative project delivery. Our distributed teams collaborate across Project Management, Construction, Engineering, Procurement, Commercial, Legal, Finance, Human Resources, Design, Quality, HSE, Consultants, Contractors, Suppliers, Logistics, Administration, Information Technology, and Executive Leadership to strengthen contractual governance, maintain accountability, and ensure consistent compliance with organizational standards.
We value professionals who demonstrate strong analytical capabilities, sound commercial judgment, attention to detail, and a commitment to transparent governance practices. Our teams work together to establish clear contractual controls, minimize risk exposure, improve decision-making, and maintain effective oversight throughout the contract lifecycle.
The Role
We are seeking an experienced Senior Contract Governance Specialist to oversee contract governance frameworks, monitor compliance with contractual policies, strengthen approval controls, and promote consistent contract management practices across construction projects and business operations. The ideal candidate will bring strong expertise in contract governance, policy development, compliance monitoring, risk assessment, contract lifecycle management, internal controls, and commercial oversight.
This role will focus on establishing effective governance standards, ensuring contractual decisions follow approved procedures, identifying control weaknesses, and improving transparency across contract-related activities. The Senior Contract Governance Specialist will collaborate with Legal, Procurement, Commercial, Project Management, Finance, Engineering, Risk Management, Internal Audit, Consultants, Contractors, and Executive Leadership to ensure that contractual arrangements are properly reviewed, approved, documented, monitored, and managed in accordance with organizational policies and applicable United Arab Emirates laws and regulations.
Key Responsibilities
Develop, implement, and maintain contract governance frameworks, policies, procedures, and operating standards.
Establish consistent governance requirements for contract creation, review, negotiation, approval, execution, amendment, renewal, and closeout.
Ensure contract management activities align with organizational policies, delegated authority matrices, commercial strategies, and risk management requirements.
Review existing contract governance processes and identify gaps, inconsistencies, control weaknesses, and opportunities for improvement.
Establish clear accountability structures for contract owners, reviewers, approvers, administrators, and other stakeholders.
Maintain governance standards across client contracts, subcontract agreements, supplier contracts, consultancy agreements, service agreements, and other commercial arrangements.
Develop standardized contract review checklists, approval forms, governance templates, and contractual compliance assessment tools.
Ensure that contract templates and standard clauses are maintained under appropriate document control and approval procedures.
Coordinate with Legal and Commercial teams to ensure that standard contractual provisions reflect approved risk positions and organizational requirements.
Establish contract classification and risk-rating methodologies based on financial value, complexity, strategic importance, liability exposure, and operational impact.
Define appropriate review and approval requirements for contracts with elevated commercial, legal, regulatory, or reputational risks.
Monitor compliance with delegated financial authority limits and internal approval requirements before contractual commitments are made.
Verify that contract approvals are supported by appropriate business justifications, commercial evaluations, risk assessments, and supporting documentation.
Review contractual deviations to confirm that they are properly identified, assessed, documented, and approved by authorized personnel.
Maintain a register of contract exceptions, negotiated deviations, outstanding approvals, and associated risk acceptance decisions.
Monitor compliance with contract execution procedures, including authorized signatories, approval records, required attachments, and effective dates.
Ensure that contracts are not executed or amended without the necessary reviews and approvals.
Establish governance controls for contract amendments, extensions, renewals, assignments, novations, and termination arrangements.
Verify that material contract changes are assessed for financial, legal, operational, schedule, and risk implications.
Maintain oversight of contractual obligations and ensure that designated contract owners understand their responsibilities.
Establish procedures for tracking contractual milestones, deliverables, notice periods, renewal dates, and other critical obligations.
Monitor the timely completion of contract-related actions and escalate overdue or high-risk items to appropriate stakeholders.
Develop contract compliance monitoring plans based on project priorities, contractual risk exposure, and governance requirements.
Conduct periodic reviews of contract files to assess completeness, accuracy, approval integrity, and compliance with established procedures.
Assess whether contractual records provide a clear audit trail from initial request and negotiation through final execution and closeout.
Coordinate with Internal Audit, Compliance, Risk Management, and Legal teams on contract governance reviews and assurance activities.
Support internal and external audits by providing contract records, approval evidence, governance documentation, and corrective action updates.
Investigate potential governance breaches, unauthorized commitments, incomplete approvals, and deviations from approved procedures.
Document findings, assess root causes, and recommend proportionate corrective and preventive actions.
Track remediation plans and verify that identified governance deficiencies are addressed within agreed timelines.
Maintain a central register of governance findings, control exceptions, audit observations, and outstanding remediation activities.
Assess contract governance risks associated with procurement activities, subcontracting arrangements, supplier relationships, and project delivery commitments.
Work with Procurement and Commercial teams to ensure that contract governance requirements are integrated into tendering and sourcing processes.
Verify that commercial evaluations, bid clarifications, negotiation records, and award recommendations are appropriately documented.
Review governance arrangements for high-value contracts, strategic suppliers, complex projects, and material commercial commitments.
Ensure that contract risk assessments are completed and updated when material contractual or operational circumstances change.
Monitor compliance with confidentiality obligations, information security requirements, data protection provisions, and contractual record access controls.
Coordinate with relevant stakeholders to ensure that sensitive contract information is shared only with authorized personnel.
Support governance controls relating to conflicts of interest, ethical conduct, anti-bribery requirements, and third-party due diligence.
Escalate potential conflicts, suspected misconduct, or material compliance concerns through established reporting channels.
Coordinate with Legal to assess governance implications arising from contractual disputes, claims, termination events, or regulatory developments.
Ensure that contractual notices, claims records, dispute correspondence, and settlement approvals are maintained in accordance with internal procedures.
Monitor governance requirements for variations, extensions of time, claims, change orders, and final account settlements.
Review the approval and documentation processes for contract-related financial commitments, liabilities, and commercial settlements.
Collaborate with Finance to strengthen governance over payment approvals, retention releases, contractual deductions, and final account reconciliations.
Support the development of governance controls for performance bonds, bank guarantees, insurance certificates, and other contractual security instruments.
Monitor the validity, renewal, release, and documentation of contractual securities in coordination with relevant teams.
Develop and maintain contract governance dashboards, key performance indicators, and management reporting frameworks.
Track metrics relating to approval turnaround times, contract compliance, documentation completeness, exceptions, audit findings, and remediation progress.
Prepare periodic reports highlighting governance performance, emerging risks, material deviations, and matters requiring management attention.
Present complex governance issues in clear, actionable language to senior management and relevant decision-makers.
Provide guidance to contract owners and project teams on governance requirements, approval procedures, documentation standards, and escalation protocols.
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Work arrangement
Yes