Regional Director of Operations - EMEA

About Volta

Volta is the category-defining, fully vertically integrated AI infrastructure platform – from capital to clusters to software, under a founder-led enterprise. Our mission is The Utility of Compute™: AI infrastructure as dependable and available as electricity, for every organization that needs it. Launched with a $10B strategic partnership with one of the leading frontier AI labs, a Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz, and a $5B AI Infrastructure Fund, Volta is building the infrastructure layer of the AI era from the ground up. We are 100+ people across London, Palo Alto, and New York, with rapid growth expectations to hundreds.

Regional Data Centre Operations Director, EMEA

Location: Europe

Department: Data Centre Site Operations, EMEA

Reports to: VP, Data Centre Operations

Direct reports: Data Centre Manager, Logistics Manager, Asset and Inventory Manager

About The Role

Reporting to the VP, Data Centre Operations, the Regional Data Centre Operations Director is responsible for the technical oversight of day-to-day data centre operations and service delivery across Volta's EMEA portfolio. The scope covers data centre management, data centre services delivery, third party vendor and subcontractor management, and customer engagement.

You will be accountable for every operational and service aspect of Volta's data centres across EMEA, leading the Data Centre Manager, Logistics Manager and Asset and Inventory Manager.

What You Will Be Doing

Leading the organisation

Provide strategic direction to site management, facility and IT infrastructure, logistics, asset and inventory, and services teams

Build the capability of each department (site operations, logistics, IT infrastructure, asset and inventory, services) and drive operational excellence across the portfolio

Review and sign off all high-risk activities across the portfolio, such as DNO outages, high-risk project works, capacity upgrades, and customer fit-outs, deployments and product refreshes

Ensure Volta's data centres are fully compliant with local and regional regulations at all times

Enforce and continually improve Volta's operational standards, processes and procedures

Act as the senior escalation point across EMEA, providing guidance, support and coaching

Lead for operations in key customer, vendor and leadership meetings across EMEA

Work with Volta's operational engineering team to improve data centre design and operations

Drive energy efficiency programmes and initiatives across EMEA

Ensure operational items on the risk register are managed, mitigated and reduced across the portfolio

Represent Volta Operations in external forums where relevant, including environmental agencies and authorities having jurisdiction (AHJs)

Demonstrate Volta's values: agility, accountability, continuous improvement, teamwork and trust

Operations pillars

You will be fully accountable for implementing the four pillars of the Operations department:

Safety first, safety for all

Security for people and assets

Availability of Volta services, always

Efficiency built natively into operations

In practice, this means you will:

Support site teams to deliver zero downtime on all site activities through proper risk analysis and mitigation

Understand the implications of customer contractual SLAs for Volta's operations and services

Ensure operations teams and service providers are ready to deliver fully against SLAs

Track the health of the EMEA operations organisation through relevant KPIs

Ensure high-risk activities are well orchestrated and controlled in line with safety rules and Volta's operating principles

Resolve escalations from site operations teams and vendors

Embed productivity as an integral part of operational processes

Manage critical vendors at senior level, including colocation providers, IT integrators and OEMs

Operational consistency

Maintain a robust, consistent operational posture across EMEA

Adapt quickly to changes in Volta directives and processes so every data centre meets existing and new standards

Contribute to updating and shaping processes and policies

Sponsor projects and initiatives within EMEA

Support other departments in achieving Volta's goals and objectives

Take on other reasonable requests from your line manager

What success looks like in 12 months

Within your first 12 months, you will have contributed to or delivered:

A generative safety culture across EMEA

100% uptime for Volta customers

A strong security posture across EMEA

An operations team built across EMEA

Clear progress towards operational excellence across EMEA

EMEA-adapted operational processes for high-risk project works

Mitigation of risk register items and a start on reducing technical debt across the portfolio

Strong relationships with Volta's providers, OEMs and integrators

What You Bring

We are looking for a leader and builder who brings people together and can shape a successful, fulfilled team. You will be reliable, honest, committed and competent, with strong leadership and management skills.

You will have experience in the data centre industry, from either an IT infrastructure or facility M&E perspective. Experience with hyperscale customers is preferred, but we will also consider experience of other critical environments such as nuclear, aeronautics, petrochemical and pharmaceutical.

Qualifications

Essential:

An electrical or mechanical qualification, ideally to degree level, or equivalent experience; or

An IT qualification, ideally to degree level, or equivalent experience

Desirable:

Membership of a relevant professional body, such as the IET, IMechE or CIBSE; or

Relevant IT, data centre or AI infrastructure certifications, such as those from Microsoft, Cisco or NVIDIA

Experience

Essential:

Extensive experience in data centre facilities, IT infrastructure or another critical environment

Leading data centre operations, IT infrastructure and operations engineering teams

Strong, demonstrable experience setting up and managing processes in a live critical operational environment

Extensive real-time incident and fault management experience in a business-critical environment

Managing third party suppliers to deliver against stringent SLAs

Business continuity, risk management, incident management and change control

Electrical, mechanical cooling, fire and life safety, and IT/OT systems, or the compute, storage and network infrastructure layer of the data centre

Project management

Knowledge

Essential:

Strong, demonstrable technical ability from either a facility M&E or IT infrastructure perspective

Excellent understanding of health and safety, ISO standards, regulation and compliance in data centres

Comprehensive knowledge of customer installations in data centres and the contractual set-up behind them

Ability to lead or support post-incident reviews and incident reports

Good working knowledge of Microsoft 365

Skills

Essential:

A natural team player: conscientious, flexible and adaptable

A leader for whom ownership and accountability are second nature

Able to work with multiple internal and external stakeholder groups

Passionate about delivering outstanding service to the highest standard

Calm under pressure, giving your teams reassurance and confidence

Tenacious and assertive when needed

Close attention to detail, with high personal standards that inspire others

Able to work efficiently as demands and requirements change

Anticipates issues and stays ahead of them

A strong sense of urgency in driving issues to resolution

Excellent written and spoken communication

What We Offer

At Volta, we believe people do their best work when they feel supported, trusted and able to grow. We're building a company where you can make an impact, keep a healthy balance between work and life, and build a caree