SVP, Operations

About the Role

Serverfarm is a major developer and operator of data centers with more than 750 locations and deep customer ties across 45 countries. The business operates across North America, Western Europe, and Israel, supporting leading hyperscale and technology companies. Following Manulife Investment Management’s 2023 controlling acquisition and the launch of the award-winning InCommand platform, the company is entering a period of rapid expansion driven by AI adoption and cloud migration.

In this senior leadership position, you will play a central role in shaping global operations for a business targeting 4x growth over the next four years. This is an opportunity to influence how critical digital infrastructure is run, secured, and scaled while helping build a sustainable platform for long-term growth.

Key Accountabilities

Executive Leadership

• Act as the COO’s deputy and provide leadership for worldwide operations, strategic priorities, and major business programs, ensuring continuity in execution and decision-making.
• Represent Operations with executive leaders, the Board, investors, and major customers; turn company strategy into operational plans and multi-year growth roadmaps in partnership with Product, Development, Construction, Finance, Legal, Security, and Commercial teams.

Operational Governance & Performance

• Build and oversee global operating standards, SOPs, maintenance approaches, and KPI structures covering uptime, SLA, MTTR, energy, safety, staffing, and customer experience.
• Maintain strong compliance frameworks across all regions, including regulatory obligations, customer commitments, certifications, and internal controls.
• Own business continuity, disaster recovery, and crisis-response processes, ensuring they are tested, strengthened, and improved over time; lead root-cause analysis and executive response for major incidents.
• Promote continuous improvement, consistency, and operational efficiency across regions by embedding strong execution discipline and best practices.
• Provide executive oversight of the Global Network Operations Centre (GNOC), including 24x7 monitoring, incident response, escalation handling, and service continuity across the portfolio.

Safety, Reliability & Engineering

• Lead the global safety program and reinforce a strong safety culture, regulatory compliance, risk management, and consistent standards in every region.
• Oversee critical environment operations, including electrical, mechanical, cooling, and controls, along with lifecycle management of essential in-life assets.
• Work with Development, Construction, and Engineering to incorporate operational needs into new builds and retrofits, while standardizing commissioning, integrated systems testing, and handover processes.

Customer & Service Delivery

• Develop executive relationships with hyperscale, enterprise, and strategic customers, own escalation oversight, and ensure timely issue resolution with clear communication.
• Lead service delivery to consistently meet SLAs and contractual obligations, using reporting, service reviews, and improvement plans to increase transparency and performance.
• Support sales and commercial teams on major pursuits, due diligence work, and operational solution design.

Financial Planning & Growth

• Direct OpEx and CapEx planning and delivery for operations, including forecasting, cost management, and performance against plan.
• Partner with Finance on cost models for new sites, expansions, customer opportunities, and strategic investments to support commercial decisions and capital allocation.
• Manage long-range planning for power, space, cooling, staffing, and infrastructure; lead operational due diligence and integration for acquisitions and expansion efforts.
• Shape hiring and workforce plans to support new campus launches, expansions, and long-term operating capacity; help establish new regional structures to enable growth.

Energy, Sustainability & ESG

• Own the operational energy strategy, including procurement, resilience planning, renewable energy, efficiency measures, and utility relationships.
• Ensure adherence to regulatory, environmental, health and safety, and certification requirements such as ISO, SOC, and customer-specific programs.
• Create resilience plans that address grid limitations, utility risk, climate-related impacts, and infrastructure vulnerabilities.

Technology & Automation

• Champion automation, infrastructure technology, and digital tools that improve monitoring, maintenance, reporting, and overall efficiency.
• Manage key suppliers and vendors to secure service quality, resilience, innovation, and strong value.

People & Organization

• Lead, coach, and develop operational leaders and teams while building succession planning structures.
• Promote a high-performance culture rooted in accountability, collaboration, innovation, and continuous improvement, and provide regular updates on performance, talent, safety, risk, and strategic progress.

Key Qualifications

• Extensive senior leadership experience in colocation, hyperscale, mission-critical facilities, or similarly complex multi-site environments.
• A strong record of managing large-scale operations with accountability for uptime, safety, customer service, and financial results.
• Proven success in operational expansion, new site launches, or multi-location capacity growth.
• Solid commercial judgment with experience managing substantial operational CapEx budgets.
• Background in energy strategy, utilities management, sustainability, or infrastructure efficiency initiatives.
• Experience improving operations through automation, technology adoption, and continuous improvement practices.
• Strong strategic planning skills, including long-term capacity planning and scaling operations to support business growth.
• Customer-oriented approach with experience handling escalations, service delivery, and executive stakeholder relationships.
• Demonstrated ability to lead and grow high-performing teams across geographies and functions.
• High integrity, strong communication, persuasive influence, and executive-level stakeholder management skills.
• Excellent analytical and decision-making abilities, using data and KPIs to prioritize and improve performance.
• This role requires international travel of about 30%.

Compensation, Benefits & Additional Information

Serverfarm is an equal opportunity employer and provides paid time off, paid holidays, a 401(k), and full medical, dental, and vision coverage.

The salary range shown for this role is an estimate tied to the competitive market; the final offer will depend on the candidate’s skills, experience, and location.

The job outline is intended to describe the general scope and level of the position, not every possible duty. Candidates are encouraged to apply even if their background does not match every requirement exactly.

The company may use AI tools to support parts of the hiring process, including application review, resume analysis, response assessment, and identification of potential inconsistencies or verification signals. These tools support the recruiting team but do not replace human judgment, and final hiring decisions are made by people. For questions about data processing, applicants should contact the company directly.