Director Parks and Green Spaces

About Qiddiya Investment Company

Qiddiya Investment Company is seeking a Director - Parks and Green Spaces to lead the strategic development and management of green infrastructure within Qiddiya City. This full-time position is based in Riyadh, Riyadh Province, and requires a professional with over 10 years of relevant experience.

Role Purpose

The Director – Green Spaces & Landscaping holds strategic leadership, governance, and portfolio oversight for all landscape, horticulture, irrigation, parks, green corridors, streetscapes, and public realm softscape assets across Qiddiya City. This role is fundamental in establishing the green spaces operating model, setting comprehensive standards, and ensuring all landscaped assets are safe, sustainable, resilient, visually high quality, and consistently guest-ready throughout the year.

Core Responsibilities

• Provide strategic leadership and governance for green spaces, landscaping, horticulture, irrigation, parks, green corridors, streetscapes, and public realm softscape assets.
• Establish and maintain the green spaces operating model, including standards, policies, inspection routines, maintenance strategies, service levels, KPIs, reporting, and escalation governance.
• Lead the operation and maintenance of parks, gardens, medians, boulevards, public realm landscapes, recreational landscapes, and associated irrigation infrastructure to ensure safe, healthy, attractive, and guest-ready environments.
• Drive sustainable landscape management, including water conservation, smart irrigation, climate-resilient planting, native and adaptive species strategies, biodiversity enhancement, green waste reduction, and plant health management.
• Provide senior operational input into design reviews, value engineering, project gateways, testing, commissioning, handover, and acceptance decisions for new landscape and irrigation assets.
• Oversee asset registers, lifecycle plans, condition assessments, replacement programmes, risk registers, performance dashboards, and operational readiness activities for all green space and landscape assets.
• Manage annual operating and capital budgets, identifying cost optimisation, resource planning, and service improvement opportunities without compromising safety, quality, sustainability, or guest experience.

Technical Authority and Team Leadership

The Director acts as the senior technical authority for landscaping, horticulture, and irrigation operations. This includes ensuring designs, handovers, and operating practices are maintainable, sustainable, and aligned with local conditions, with specific expertise in local horticultural practices, climate-appropriate planting, water efficiency, plant health, and knowledge of plant species native to the Arabian Peninsula.

• Direct contractor, consultant, and service provider performance through clear scopes of work, technical standards, audits, SLA/KPI management, commercial challenge, corrective action plans, and governance reviews.
• Build, lead, and develop the landscaping and green spaces team, setting clear priorities, developing capability, promoting accountability, and ensuring disciplined, evidence-based decision making.

Required Experience

Candidates for this role must possess a minimum of 10 years of experience in a relevant field, demonstrating a strong background in leading and managing large-scale green space and landscape operations.

Location and Employment Type

This is a full-time position based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, offering an opportunity to contribute to a significant development project.