Director, Data Center Facilities Development

Director, Data Center Facilities Development at Oracle

As the Director, Data Center Facilities Development, you will play a pivotal role in the early stages of our data center projects, ensuring they are set up for success from the outset. Your leadership will be crucial in developing and implementing construction strategies that align with our long-term organizational goals. You will lead the construction phases in conjunction with the project management team, fostering a culture of innovation, collaboration, and excellence. Your role will be critical to the planning, design, and budgeting phases of complex construction projects, ensuring they are feasible, schedule driven, cost-effective, and aligned with our quality standards.

Strategically, you will be responsible for developing comprehensive preconstruction plans that optimize schedule efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and operational excellence. You will engage with key stakeholders, manage high-stakes vendor relationships, and navigate the complexities of regulatory compliance. Your ability to anticipate and mitigate risks will be crucial in maintaining project timelines and budgets. By staying ahead of industry trends and incorporating cutting-edge technologies, you will ensure our data centers are not only state-of-the-art but also future proof. This is an exciting opportunity to make a significant impact on our organization's growth and success, and we are looking for a visionary leader who is ready to take on this challenge.

Travel may be required up to 25% of the time. Position can be remote, with preference given to personnel who are able to relocate to Saline, MI area.

Responsibilities

Key Responsibilities

Construction Project Management-Project Planning and Execution:

• Oversees the construction of data centers by colocation providers, ensuring successful delivery of projects within the established timeline, budget, and quality parameters.
• Develops, maintains, and oversees project schedules, ensuring effective coordination with colocation providers for on-time milestone achievement.
• Leads the creation, management, and optimization of project budgets, ensuring strategic resource allocation and cost-efficiency throughout the project.
• Provides high-level leadership to project managers, setting strategic goals and ensuring alignment with organizational objectives.
• Directs the creation, review, and maintenance of documentation, including design review, commissioning, and problem-solving papers, ensuring organizational standards are upheld, documents are managed and delivered effectively, and all materials are suitable for their intended purpose.

Construction Project Management-Project Integration and Quality Assurance:

• Directs the oversight of quality control processes to ensure all construction activities meet design specifications and industry standards.
• Directs the coordination and integration of tenant fit out projects, developing strategies to enhance efficiency and collaboration during design, construction, and commissioning phases.
• Leads strategic site walks to ensure schedule adherence, coordination, and quality throughout the project lifecycle.
• Oversees the startup and commissioning phases of major data center projects, ensuring all systems are operational and meet design specifications.

Risk and Problem Management:

• Directs the evaluation of risk profiles associated with timely project delivery across a portfolio of projects.
• Addresses gaps in risk identification and mitigation, and communicates potential impacts to executive leadership.
• Develops and ensures the execution of comprehensive mitigation strategies for major construction project risks to ensure overall project success.

Stakeholder and Vendor Management:

• Directs the role of primary point of contact between the company and colocation providers, ensuring clear and effective communication and integrative solutions across the organization.
• Develops and maintains strategic relationships to support internal and external stakeholders at a senior level, driving organizational strategy and business objectives.
• Oversees the selection, negotiation, and management of contracts with external vendors, contractors, and suppliers, ensuring contract compliance and performance, and managing high-impact contract resolutions.

Design Coordination and Improvement:

• Directs collaboration with design teams to ensure that construction activities align with the approved design plans and specifications, integrating solutions across the organization.
• Provides high-level colocation provider evaluation input for continuous improvement, driving organizational strategy and business objectives.
• Oversees the installation of power, cooling, networking, and structured cabling systems, ensuring adherence to quality standards and managing high-impact installation resolutions.

Core Responsibilities

Planning & Execution:

• Oversees and guides multiple teams on managing complex projects or initiatives, monitoring timelines, deliverables, and budgets when applicable to ensure strategic objectives are met.
• Serves as a role model for appropriately delegating work, setting priorities, and ensuring alignment with business needs.
• Coaches others on adjusting resources or project timelines in anticipation of business changes.

Collaboration & Partnership:

• Role models leading cross-functional collaborative efforts to ensure alignment of expectations and strategic objectives.
• Empowers team to build and maintain partnerships with business leaders, stakeholders, and/or customers to address barriers and contribute to organizational success.
• Drives transparency and inclusivity by modeling actively seeking, listening to, and leveraging diverse perspectives.

Problem Solving:

• Shares problem-solving strategies across teams, providing oversight on complex operational and/or technical issues, as needed.
• Coaches teams on analyzing highly complex data and/or information to identify solutions to ambiguous issues, and provides direction on identifying root causes to prevent recurrence of issues.

Continuous Learning:

• Pursues strategic learning opportunities to maintain expertise and apply best practices at the organizational level.
• Creates opportunities for team members and leaders to build their expertise in new areas, coaching them to build innovative skills.
• Identifies skill gap trends across the organization, and upholds a culture that places significant emphasis on sharing knowledge and pursuing learning opportunities that advance the organization.
• Evaluates efficiency of learning strategies and recommends adjustments as needed.

Continuous Improvement:

• Empowers team to own the development and implementation of ideas that increase the efficiency and effectiveness of processes, protocols, and workflows across the department.
• Coaches teams to gain buy-in for ideas and to seek feedback on approaches and methods for continued improvement.
• Prioritizes and reviews the roadmap of improvement initiatives to ensure alignment with strategic direction and maximize return on investments.

Performance and Development:

• Serves as a role model for driving performance across teams through tailored feedback and coaching in alignment with performance management processes, guidelines, and expectations.
• Drives consistency in the application of talent development procedures and socializes performance expectations across the organization.
• Ensures that individual development goals are aligned with organizational strategic initiatives.
• Collaborates with HR to implement talent strategy through hiring and promotion processes.

Key skills/competency

• Data Center Construction Management
• Project Planning & Execution
• Budget Management
• Risk Mitigation
• Vendor & Stakeholder Management
• Quality Assurance
• Facilities Design Coordination
• Strategic Leadership
• Colocation Provider Oversight
• Critical Infrastructure Development