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Volta is building a vertically integrated AI infrastructure platform with the mission to make compute as dependable and available as electricity. Backed by a $10B strategic partnership with a leading frontier AI lab, Series A funding from Andreessen Horowitz, and a $5B AI Infrastructure Fund, the company is scaling rapidly across London, Palo Alto, and New York.
As Regional Director of Operations for EMEA, you will lead all technical and operational aspects of Volta's data centre portfolio across the region. Reporting to the VP of Data Centre Operations, you will manage three direct reports: a Data Centre Manager, Logistics Manager, and Asset and Inventory Manager. Your accountability spans data centre management, service delivery, third-party vendor management, and customer engagement across all EMEA sites.
Key responsibilities include:
- Providing strategic direction to site management, facility and IT infrastructure, logistics, asset and inventory, and services teams
- Building capability across departments and driving operational excellence across the portfolio
- Reviewing and signing off on high-risk activities including DNO outages, capacity upgrades, customer fit-outs, and product refreshes
- Ensuring full compliance with local and regional regulations
- Enforcing and continuously improving operational standards, processes, and procedures
- Acting as senior escalation point across EMEA, providing guidance and coaching
- Leading operations in key customer, vendor, and leadership meetings
- Collaborating with operational engineering teams on data centre design improvements
- Driving energy efficiency programmes across EMEA
- Managing operational risk register items
- Representing Volta Operations in external forums with environmental agencies and authorities
You will implement four operational pillars: safety first, security for people and assets, availability of Volta services, and efficiency built into operations. This includes supporting zero-downtime site activities, understanding customer SLA implications, ensuring teams meet SLAs, tracking KPIs, orchestrating high-risk activities, resolving escalations, and managing critical vendors at senior level.
Within 12 months, success means establishing a generative safety culture, achieving 100% uptime for customers, building a strong security posture, assembling an operations team across EMEA, making clear progress toward operational excellence, developing EMEA-adapted processes for high-risk work, mitigating risk register items, and building strong relationships with providers and integrators.
QUALIFICATIONS
Essential:
- Electrical or mechanical qualification to degree level, or equivalent experience; OR IT qualification to degree level, or equivalent experience
Desirable:
- Membership of relevant professional body (IET, IMechE, CIBSE)
- Relevant IT, data centre, or AI infrastructure certifications (Microsoft, Cisco, NVIDIA)
EXPERIENCE
Essential:
- Extensive experience in data centre facilities, IT infrastructure, or other critical environments
- Leading data centre operations, IT infrastructure, and operations engineering teams
- Setting up and managing processes in live critical operational environments
- Extensive real-time incident and fault management in business-critical environments
- Managing third-party suppliers to deliver against stringent SLAs
- Business continuity, risk management, incident management, and change control
- Knowledge of electrical, mechanical cooling, fire and life safety, IT/OT systems, or compute, storage and network infrastructure
- Project management experience
KNOWLEDGE
Essential:
- Strong technical ability from 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 and contractual setups
- Ability to lead or support post-incident reviews and reports
- Working knowledge of Microsoft 365
SKILLS
Essential:
- Natural team player: conscientious, flexible, adaptable
- Leader with ownership and accountability as core traits
- Ability to work with multiple internal and external stakeholder groups
- Passionate about delivering outstanding service
- Calm under pressure, providing teams reassurance and confidence
- Tenacious and assertive when needed
- Close attention to detail with high personal standards
- Efficient work amid changing demands
- Anticipates issues and stays ahead of them
- Strong sense of urgency in driving resolution
- Excellent written and spoken communication
