Description:
The Director, Utility Development, Europe will be responsible for all aspects of utility engagement, power acquisition, utility development, and power delivery across Europe. This leader will ultimately own: evaluating power availability in new & existing markets; leading site power due diligence; ensuring utility capacity is evaluated and secured at each campus to support data centers; negotiating power contracts; delivering transmission and substation infrastructure; and leading technical utility infrastructure engineering oversight. This role will interface and collaborate with many critical stakeholders, including but not limited to: pre-development teams leading overall due diligence and entitlements; energy leaders driving power contracts and negotiations; operations leaders managing load growth projections; sales teams coordinating customer demands; and development team project leaders planning and building new data centers.
Responsibilities - other duties may be assigned:
- Build and lead a team responsible for: utility engagement (including power site due diligence), utility delivery, utility infrastructure procurement, utility engineering oversight, and HV O&M
- Lead strategic engagement with power utilities across Europe
- Manage power due diligence for prospective sites
- Lead technical engagement for all utility projects across the European portfolio
- Execute power contracts for new and expansion capacity, alongside the Energy Team
- Oversee all private substation deployments across Europe
- Lead all aspects of high-voltage projects, including scope, schedule, & budget
- Build and expand relationships with key high- & medium-voltage OEM vendors
- Lead procurement of HV & MV infrastructure assets in Europe
- Track and report on power contract status for all North American sites
- Manage and oversee programmatic operations & maintenance of HV + MV infrastructure standards and contracts for all European sites
- Support the Energy Team as required in their leadership and pursuit of energy procurement, PPAs, and sustainability goals
- Collaborate with Blackstone leadership, Senior QTS Leadership, Pre-Development, Energy, Development, Legal, and Sales to evaluate, secure, and deliver required power capacity
Essential Qualifications:
- Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering, construction management, energy management, or equivalent professional experience
- Ten or more years of site, utility, and/or energy projects, along with utility contract negotiations
- Three or more years of people leader experience
- Able to travel up to 50% of the time or as needed to support relationship building and projects
- Demonstrated experience working directly with executives and collaborating effectively across all levels of the organization
Desired Qualifications:
- Ten or more years developing and fostering utility industry relationships
- Experience leading due diligence on prospective large-scale power opportunities
- Solid understanding of the power study and contracting process at various utilities
- Relationships with key HV Utility OEMs / Consultants / Partners in Europe
- Understanding of energy markets and large-load transmission planning
- Experience managing large portfolio of work
Additional Skills:
- Fluency in English required; fluency in other European languages strongly preferred
- Strong verbal and written communication skills
- Strong negotiating skills
- Ability to build relationships and influence cross-discipline teams
- Ability to be flexible and adapt to changing situations at a high growth company
- Ability to prioritize, multitask, and deliver high quality work in tight timeframes