Director, Utility Engagement

Description Summary:

The Director, Utility Engagement will be responsible for the team leading early-stage power engagement and utility company coordination across the North American footprint. This leader will ultimately own ensuring utility capacity is evaluated and secured at each campus to support data centers by developing power market intelligence; leading site power due diligence; negotiating power contracts; and fostering strategic utility engagement. This role will interface and collaborate with many critical stakeholders, including but not limited to pre-development teams leading overall due diligence and entitlements; utility delivery teams directing transmission and substation projects; 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.

Essential Duties:

• Lead strategic engagement with power utilities across the North American portfolio by building and maintaining strong relationships with utilities.
• Build and lead a team responsible for power market intelligence, power site due diligence, and power capacity management (for both load ramps at new sites, and transmission capacity planning for existing sites)
• Manage power due diligence for prospective sites
• Develop and manage utility engagement strategies for each utility
• Execute power contracts for new and expansion capacity by negotiating interconnection agreements, tariffs, and service-level commitments.
• Support the Energy Team as required in their leadership and pursuit of energy procurement, PPAs, and sustainability goals
• Track and report on power contract status for all North American sites  
• Collaborate with Pre-Development, Utility Delivery, Energy, Development, Legal, and Sales to secure power capacity in line with customer demands
• Other duties as assigned

 Education/Training/Experience:

• Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering, energy management, or equivalent professional experience
• Ten (10) or more years of utility and energy projects, along with utility contract negotiations
• Three (3) or more years of leadership experience
• Knowledge of utility partners, including investor-owned / COOP / municipal utilities, and ISOs/RTOs
• Experience working with Microsoft Office Suite
• Demonstrated experience working directly with executives and collaborating effectively across all levels of the organization
• Able to travel up to 50% of the time or as needed to support relationship building and diligence

 Preferred Qualifications:

• Fifteen (15) 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
• Demonstrated ability negotiating utility agreements such as ESAs and RSAs
• Understanding of energy markets and large-load transmission planning
• Experience managing large portfolio of work