Principal, Data Center Cost Strategy & Operations

Role is Based in Nashville, TN This role is the primary business and financial partner for Data Center Operations. It connects operational activity with budgeting, forecasting, investments, performance reporting, and executive updates. Candidates will identify financial risks early, resolves cross-functional issues, clarifies ownership of planning and reporting, and helps operations leaders maintain reliable, scalable data center performance with strong cost control.

The Principal, Data Center Cost Strategy & Operations role is the single accountable business partner for Data Center Operations, connecting day-to-day operating context with planning, forecasting, investment decisions, performance management, and executive visibility.

This role brings critical data center financial and business-management expertise into the organization. The role proactively identifies budget and forecasts risks, drives timely resolution of cross-functional escalations, and establishes clear ownership across reporting, PAQs, modeling, planning, and governance. This enables Operations leaders to focus on safe, reliable, and scalable execution while maintaining strong financial discipline and visibility.

Success Measures

Success in this role will be reflected through:

• One clear and trusted accountable partner for Data Center Operations business management.
• Earlier identification and mitigation of budget and forecast risks.
• Improved forecast accuracy, planning transparency, and timeliness of operating reviews.
• Fewer fragmented handoffs across reporting, PAQs, modeling, and planning.
• Faster resolution of cross-functional escalations.
• More consistent, decision-ready models and business cases.
• Greater confidence among Operations and partner leadership in data center performance and planning., Strategic Business Partnership
• Serve as the primary business-management partner to Data Center Operations leadership.
• Translate operational conditions, capacity requirements, program changes, supplier dynamics, and execution risks into clear business and financial implications.
• Advise leaders on tradeoffs among cost, capacity, reliability, delivery timelines, and strategic priorities.
• Build strong partnerships across Data Center Operations, Finance, FP&A, Supply Chain, Construction, Capacity Planning, and other critical stakeholders.

Planning, Forecasting, and Performance Management

• Lead the organization’s annual operating plan, long-range planning, and recurring forecast processes in partnership with Finance.
• Proactively identify budget, forecast, and spend risks; quantify exposure; establish mitigation plans; and ensure timely leadership visibility.
• Develop operating reviews that explain actuals, forecast changes, key drivers, variances, commitments, and risks.
• Establish consistent performance metrics and operating mechanisms across the data center portfolio.
• Ensure material financial assumptions are documented, challenged, and aligned with operational reality.

Modeling and Decision Support

• Lead or oversee analysis and modeling for data center operational decisions, including capacity, energy, maintenance, labor, vendor services, equipment lifecycle, and infrastructure investments.
• Provide decision-ready recommendations that articulate cost, risk, return, timing, and operational impact.
• Standardize core business models, assumptions, and analytical approaches to improve decision quality, speed, and comparability.
• Partner with Finance and Operations teams to assess the impact of changes in scope, schedule, demand, utilization, and service requirements.

Governance, Reporting, and PAQ Ownership

• Create integrated, clear ownership across reporting, PAQs, planning, modeling, and operating governance.
• Ensure data, reporting definitions, business narratives, and escalation paths are consistent across stakeholders.
• Drive timely and accurate responses to leadership reviews, audit needs, and operational business inquiries.
• Identify reporting gaps, process inefficiencies, and recurring control weaknesses; implement durable improvements.
• Establish a regular cadence for reviewing actions, decisions, owners, and risk closure.

Escalation Management

• Act as the senior point of coordination for business escalations affecting Data Center Operations.
• Resolve cross-functional issues that create budget, forecast, reporting, capital, or operating-spend risk.
• Escalate material risks with a clear problem statement, business impact, decision required, recommended path, and accountable owner.
• Ensure escalations are driven to closure and lessons learned are incorporated into planning and operating processes.

Team and Capability Building

• Define the business-management capability needed to support a growing and increasingly complex data center organization.
• Build, mentor, or influence a high-performing team of business operations and planning professionals as appropriate.
• Raise business and financial acumen across the Operations organization while helping partner teams better understand data center operating realities.
• Establish repeatable mechanisms that reduce fragmented ownership and improve accountability.

• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Finance, Accounting, Economics, or a related field; MBA, CPA, or equivalent advanced qualification preferred.
• 5+ years of progressively responsible experience in business operations, strategic planning, FP&A, commercial finance, or related leadership roles.
• Demonstrated data center, cloud infrastructure, colocation, telecom infrastructure, utilities, or similarly capital-intensive operations finance experience.
• Strong experience leading annual planning, multi-year forecasting, variance analysis, and executive operating reviews.
• Experience developing business cases and models for operational and capital investment decisions.
• Proven ability to influence senior operational and functional leaders in a complex, matrixed environment.
• Strong understanding of operational cost drivers, including facilities operations, energy, maintenance, labor, vendor services, capacity, and infrastructure lifecycle management.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to turn complex analysis into clear executive recommendations.
• High judgment, ownership mindset, attention to detail, and ability to drive ambiguous cross-functional issues to resolution.

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