Senior Director, Business Development

Job Description

Position Title: Senior Director,Market & Business Development - Financial Ecosystems

Location: Chicago, IL. or New York, NY.


Your role

Digital Realty's Market & Business Development team sits at the center of how we grow-working with customers and partners to identify new markets, build high-value ecosystems, and expand the global reach of PlatformDigital® . Our data centers form the foundation of connected digital communities that power cloud, network, content, and enterprise platforms worldwide.

As the digital and financial services landscape rapidly evolves-driven by cloud adoption, real-time data, and AI-we are building a world-class team to lead this next phase of growth. This role is a senior, global leadership position responsible for shaping and scaling Digital Realty's Financial Services ecosystem.

You will act as the global quarterback for financial services initiatives, working closely with enterprise customers, cloud providers, technology partners, and internal teams to define strategy, unlock new markets, and deliver differentiated solutions at scale.

Why This Role Matters

This is a rare opportunity to shape how financial services infrastructure evolves at a global scale. You'll influence where markets develop, how ecosystems form, and how some of the world's most demanding financial platforms operate-today and in the future.

What you'll do

Lead Financial Services Ecosystem Strategy

• Define and execute a global ecosystem strategy across financial services, including capital markets, banking, payments, fintech, insurance, and risk & compliance.
• Identify priority markets, anchor customers, and strategic partners that drive ecosystem growth.
• Shape differentiated value propositions focused on performance, interconnection density, neutrality, resilience, and regulatory readiness.

Drive Strategic Business Development

• Own executive-level relationships with selected global enterprise accounts.
• Lead high-impact customer and partner engagements, positioning Digital Realty as a trusted, long-term infrastructure partner.
• Translate customer needs into actionable go-to-market, product, and investment strategies.

Build and Scale Financial Ecosystems

• Develop interconnected financial services hubs in key global metros by attracting exchanges, market data providers, cloud access points, fintechs, and analytics platforms.
• Work directly with customers to align platform capabilities with their business models, workloads, and growth ambitions.
• Build and strengthen alliances with leading technology and service providers across the financial services stack.

Influence Product, Infrastructure & Investment Decisions

• Partner with Product and Engineering teams to deliver infrastructure capabilities tailored to financial services, including low-latency connectivity, exchange proximity, antenna access, and audit-ready designs.
• Collaborate with Acquisitions & Investments and New Market Development teams to support market entry, site selection, and strategic partnerships.
• Act as the voice of the customer to ensure mid- and long-term investments align with market demand.

Support Strategic Sales & Transformational Deals

• Serve as an executive sponsor for complex, high-value pursuits, including AI/ML and real-time risk workloads.
• Support enterprise sales teams in executive meetings and strategic negotiations.
• Help shape solution positioning and messaging for large, transformational opportunities.

Thought Leadership & Market Engagement

• Stay ahead of industry trends, emerging technologies, and regulatory developments in financial services.
• Represent Digital Realty at industry events and with regulators, industry bodies, and partners.
• Contribute to external thought leadership through speaking engagements, white papers, and executive briefings.

How Success Is Measured

• A clearly defined and executed financial services ecosystem strategy
• Strong joint value propositions with strategic customers and partners
• "Lighthouse" customer wins that establish market leadership in priority use cases and geographies

What you'll need

• 12 + years of Senior-level experience in business development, partnerships, or strategic selling within the financial services technology ecosystem.
• A strong network of industry leaders, customers, and partners across financial services and adjacent technology markets.
• Proven ability to articulate complex value propositions and close high-impact, multi-stakeholder deals.
• Strategic mindset with the ability to operate globally and influence cross-functional teams.
• Excellent communication skills and comfort engaging at the executive and board level.

Willingness to travel internationally as needed.

A bit about us

Digital Realty brings companies and data together by delivering the full spectrum of data center, colocation and interconnection solutions. PlatformDIGITAL®, the company's global data center platform, provides customers with a secure data meeting place and a proven Pervasive Datacenter Architecture (PDx®) solution methodology for powering innovation and efficiently managing Data Gravity challenges. Digital Realty gives its customers access to the connected data communities that matter to them with a global data center footprint of 300+ facilities in 50+ metros across 25+ countries on six continents.

To learn more about Digital Realty, please visit digitalrealty.com or follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

A bit about our team

Business Development

Our Business Development team is at the forefront of our continuing growth. We use our different market sector insights to develop effective sales strategies and work with the Sales team to implement them. Our team plays an integral part in forming long-term relationships with customers around the world, by identifying opportunities that add value and demonstrating how our solutions can meet their needs.

What we can offer you

Our rapidly evolving business sector offers the opportunity to be part of a courageous and passionate team who work together to understand and meet the changing needs of our global customers.


Join us and you'll be part of a supportive and inclusive environment where you can bring your whole self to work. As part of our team, you'll get to work with people from different business areas, challenge the way we do things and put your ideas into action. We'll also give you plenty of development opportunities so you can build a rewarding and successful career with us.


Apply today, take charge of your career and grow your talents with us.

Health and Safety

Safety isn't just a priority here at Digital; it's critical to everything we do. Safeguarding lives, protecting assets, and securing data aren't just ideals - they're essential pillars of our commitment to excellence for our people, our partners and our customers. We have a culture of care where every member of Team Digital embraces a relentless pursuit of working safely across Digital Realty. Together we are Safely Powering Progress.

Our Compensation Philosophy

Digital Realty offers its employees a highly competitive compensation package, excellent benefits, and an environment that recognizes and rewards your contributions. Central to our compensation philosophy is rewarding our employees for achieving the values and objectives aligned to the company's overall goals and values.

Our published pay ranges reflect the minimum and maximum target for new hire pay for the full-time position determined by role, level, and geographical location. Individual pay is based on additional factors including but not limited to job-related skills, experience, and relevant education and/or training. Moreover, an employee's total compensation package varies by role and may include salary, cash bonus or commissions, and equity awards not quantified below.

Compensation range: $220,000 to $250,000 per year. This compensation range represents the Company's good faith belief as to what it will pay as a base salary rate for this position at the time of this posting.


Benefits: For this role, Benefits include medical, dental, vision, life and AD&D insurance, 401k match, disability benefits, wellness and education benefits, employee stock purchase plan, paid time off, holidays, and more.

Responsibilities

The role will develop and implement strategies to secure and nurture partnerships with major clients, focusing on data center markets. They will lead cross-functional teams to execute go-to-market plans, ensuring alignment with overall business objectives and market trends. The role involves conducting in-depth market and competitive analysis to identify growth opportunities and potential risks. Building and maintaining strong relationships with customers, partners, and executives is essential, as is the ability to negotiate complex agreements in a multinational environment. The role will also oversee marketing communications and stakeholder engagement activities, ensuring effective messaging and brand positioning. They must demonstrate resilience and adaptability in a fast-paced, ambiguous environment, while driving innovation and creative problem-solving across teams.

Qualifications

12-18 Years significant work experience in business development, product marketing, or sales within the data center, cloud, or platforms industryProven track record of delivering results and negotiating complex agreements in a multinational environmentStrong understanding of industry trends, technologies, and stakeholder networksDegree required; MBA or university degree in a relevant field preferredWillingness to travel