Senior Vice President, Mission Critical Operations, NA

About Vantage Data Centers Vantage Data Centers powers, cools, protects and connects the technology of the world’s well-known hyperscalers, cloud providers and large enterprises. Developing and operating across North America, EMEA and Asia Pacific, Vantage has evolved data center design in innovative ways to deliver dramatic gains in reliability, efficiency and sustainability in flexible environments that can scale as quickly as the market demands. Mission Critical Operations Department Mission Critical Operations (MCO) is responsible for the safe, secure, and uninterrupted operation of Vantage’s North America data center portfolio. The organization spans Site Operations, Field Engineering (including Reliability Engineering and Automation Controls), Physical Security, and Business Operations. MCO operates in highly interdependent, always-on environments where availability, safety, speed of execution, and decision-making under pressure are critical to customer trust and business continuity. Position Overview The Senior Vice President, Mission Critical Operations is the senior executive accountable for the safe, secure, and reliable operation of Vantage’s North America data center portfolio. This leader owns the day-to-day operating system across Site Operations, Field Engineering, Physical Security, and Business Operations, with direct accountability for availability, customer commitments, operational performance, and execution at scale. This is a large, field-based organization spanning approximately 400–600 employees across multiple campuses, regions, and disciplines. The SVP is responsible for scaling the leadership structure, operating cadence, and accountability model required to support a rapidly growing portfolio with consistency and discipline. A core expectation of this role is to continuously raise the standard of operations across the portfolio—strengthening consistency, sharpening execution, and improving performance over time. This leader will set that standard and bring the organization along, building alignment and ownership across teams, functions, and sites. This role requires a strong people leader who can build and develop a multi-layer leadership team while setting a clear standard for performance and accountability. The successful candidate will be credible in the field, effective with customers, and capable of operating at the executive level in a high-consequence, fast-scaling environment. This position can be based in Denver, Colorado; Sterling, Virginia; Goodyear, Arizona; San Jose, California; or San Antonio, Texas. Essential Job Functions Own 24x7 operating performance across the North America portfolio, including safety, security, availability, customer commitments, and escalation discipline. Lead Site Operations, Field Engineering, Physical Security, and Business Operations as one integrated operating organization. Establish and inspect the operating cadence, KPIs, SLAs, operational reviews, and escalation mechanisms required to manage performance, risk, and reliability across the fleet. Drive availability and reliability outcomes through disciplined execution, risk management, and continuous improvement. Continuously elevate the standard of operations by reinforcing clear expectations, identifying gaps, and driving consistency in execution across all sites and teams. Build shared ownership for performance across the organization, ensuring leaders at every level understand expectations and are accountable for outcomes. Lead incident response and executive escalation for critical operational events, ensuring clear decision-making, communication, recovery, and follow-through. Serve as the executive point of accountability for customer-facing performance and critical operational escalations. Build and scale a distributed operational organization of approximately 400–600 employees across multiple regions and campuses. Develop and strengthen a multi-layer leadership structure, including VP, Director, and Manager levels, with clear succession depth. Set a high bar for people leadership, driving accountability, capability building, and performance management across all levels. Ensure Field Engineering is focused on infrastructure performance, maintenance strategy, operational reliability, and execution quality, while maintaining strong partnership with Design and Construction. Ensure Physical Security is fully integrated into daily operations, incident response, and site readiness. Direct the Business Operations function to enable scale, including vendor management, service support, operational reporting, and process discipline. Partner with Finance to manage operating and capital budgets and make disciplined tradeoffs between cost, risk, and reliability. Lead operational readiness execution for new sites, expansions, and major infrastructure changes, ensuring teams, procedures, staffing, and escalation paths are in place prior to customer-impacting operations. Partner across Design, Construction, Enterprise functions, and Customer Experience to align execution and outcomes. Lead through ambiguity, setting direction and making decisions where precedent does not exist. Represent operations in executive forums, with customers, and across the organization. Additional duties as assigned by Management. Job Requirements Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Business, or related field; advanced degree preferred. 15+ years of experience leading large-scale, field-based operations or technical organizations. 10+ years of senior leadership experience managing multi-site, multi-function teams. Proven experience building and scaling organizations of comparable size and complexity (approximately 400–600 employees). Experience leading 24x7, high-availability operations with direct accountability for uptime, customer commitments, and operational risk. Strong working knowledge of critical infrastructure environments, including electrical, mechanical, controls, and building systems operations. Experience with incident response, emergency operations, change management, and operational readiness for new sites or expansions. Demonstrated ability to use KPIs, SLAs, and operating reviews to drive performance, accountability, and consistency across a distributed portfolio. Demonstrated ability to raise performance standards over time while building alignment across teams and functions. Exceptional people leadership capability, including building leadership teams, developing talent, and creating alignment across distributed organizations. Demonstrated ability to lead through growth, complexity, and ambiguity. Strong communication skills with the ability to operate effectively from the field to executive-level forums. Financial acumen including budget ownership and cost/risk tradeoff management. Travel is expected to be up to 40% but may increase as the business evolves. Physical Demands and Special Requirements The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. While performing the duties of this job, the employee is occasionally required to stand; walk; sit; use hands to handle, or feel objects; reach with hands and arms; climb stairs; balance; stoop or kneel; talk and hear. The employee must occasionally lift and/or move up to 25 pounds. Additional Details Salary Range: $330,000-$360,000 Base + Bonus (this range is based on Colorado market data and may vary in other locations) This position is eligible for company benefits including but not limited to medical, dental, and vision coverage, life and AD&D, short and long-term disability coverage, paid time off, employee assistance, participation in a 401k program that includes company match, and many other additional voluntary benefits. Compensation for the role will depend on a number of factors, including your qualifications, skills, competencies, and experience and may fall outside of the range shown. We operate with No Ego and No Arrogance. We work to build each other up and support one another, appreciating each other’s strengths and respecting each other’s weaknesses. We find joy in our work and each other, actively seeking opportunities to inject fun into what we do. Our hard and efficient work is rewarded with an above market total compensation package. We offer a comprehensive suite of health and welfare, retirement, and paid leave benefits exceeding local expectations. Throughout the year, the advantage of being part of the Vantage team is evident with an array of benefits, recognition, training and development, and the knowledge that your contribution adds value to the company and our community. Don't meet all the requirements? Please still apply if you think you are the right person for the position. We are always keen to speak to people who connect with our mission and values. Vantage Data Centers is an Equal Opportunity Employer Vantage Data Centers does not accept unsolicited resumes from search firm agencies. Fees will not be paid in the event a candidate submitted by a recruiter without an agreement in place is hired; such resumes will be deemed the sole property of Vantage Data Centers. We’ll be accepting applications for at least one week from the date this role is posted. If you're interested, we encourage you to apply soon—we’re excited to find the right person and will keep the role open until we do!