ABOUT THE ROLE

The Data Center Infrastructure Lead, France is leading Data Center facility management at country level. They are directly accountable for delivery of safe, secure and available operations of all data centers in their span of control. They manage Facility Manager Leads and Critical Environment Manager Leads and as such have the accountability of multiple campuses within France. They lead initiatives to improve safety, physical security and operational performance at country level.

The Data Center Infrastructure Lead reports to the Country Head of Data Center Operations. They liaise locally with the Energy Manager and the Operations Quality Manager to achieve their operational objectives and contribute to country strategic goals. They benchmark their processes and operational performance with other countries, with the support of Data4 Operations Global Process Owners. They manage health, safety, environment and physical security at their facilities with the support of the HSE and Physical Security Managers. They liaise on a regular basis with Customer Success team to ensure client operational requests and objectives are met.

The Data Center Infrastructure Lead is responsible for growing Facility Managers and Critical Environment Managers into leaders showing entrepreneurship, responsibility and adaptability. They identify competences and resources available and provide direction and expertise to the FM leads, CEM leads and all individual contributors within their scope by promoting Data4 strategy and best business practices. They ensure succession planning, early talent detection, individual performance reviews and individual yearly business objectives. They take calculated risks and provide support to other countries in Data4 Operations when needed.

The Data Center Infrastructure Lead is responsible for operational budgets and forecasts and ensures both capital expenditures and cost of goods sold / operational expenditures are kept within the allowed budget. They promote a culture of transparency and raise early warnings, manage risks and provide solutions for any budget overrun or execution delays. They identify the need for capital investments and manage short-term and long-term investments with the Country Director and the Head of Data Center Operations.

The Data Center Infrastructure Lead provides weekly, monthly and quarterly reports to the Head of Data Center Operations and to the Country Director. They participate in mandatory ISO9001, 27001 and 5001, PCI-DS and ISAE-3402 audits. They manage gaps and propose mitigation and remediation plans to any non-compliance identified.

The Data Center Infrastructure Lead interfaces with senior leadership. The candidate for the role must excel in written and verbal communication, in both French and English. They must demonstrate the ability to think strategically and take bold initiatives on behalf of their internal and external customers. They have experience of operating large-scale data centers or comparable experience in mission critical environments (e.g. semiconductors, nuclear operations, military…)

RESPONSIBILITIES

RESPONSIBILITES IN TERMS OF IMS CERTIFICATIONS

Respect and enforce certification policies in terms of:

IMS: Respect and enforce the certification policy and be proactive in improving the Integrated Management System (IMS) with stakeholders.
H&S: Respect and enforce health and safety rules.
Environment: Respect and enforce environmental policies.
Information security: Respect and enforce information security policies.
Energy: Respect and enforce the policy of energy management policy.

JOB SPECIFIC RESPONSIBILITIES

Hires and inducts the right team of Facility Management and Critical Environment Management.
Develops people, owns training programs, manages performance, and ensures succession planning
Defines performance targets and implements improvement plans with the Head of Data Center Operations, France to address performance issues
Issues periodic operational performance reports, and ensures operational standards align with the business and industry best practices
Drives continuous improvement and lessons learned, manages risks within own scope
Manages COGS and CAPEX budgets, accountable for budget early warnings
Works with other teams to constantly improve the level of service rendered internally and to our customers.
Defines the 3-years roadmap in collaboration with the Country Director, France and the Head of Data Center Operations, France
Assists with special queries from other countries such as new data center launch, crisis resolution, or any other operations related topic.

REQUIREMENTS

1. Education and experience

5+ year experience in similar position or in mission-critical operation, with background in incident management and resolution
Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical/Mechanical/Energy Engineering or equivalent experience
Fluent English (B2/C1)

2. Technical skills (required and preferred)

Required

Experience in people management
Experience with complex systems
Experience with change management and facility management
Experience with incident management, incident resolution and learning from errors
Agile with IT tools – knowledge of ticketing tools such as JIRA, Proxima or Remedy
KPI and metrics management and analysis

Preferred

Experience in managing people’s managers
Familiar with customer success management in Data Centers

3. Soft skills

Effective communication – emails, phone and face to face
Strong work ethics and trustworthiness, capability of building a trusting relationship with peers and senior leadership
Strategic thinking and ability to build a multiple year vision
Capability of conveying strategic ideas through written documents