Critical Operations Director (Australia)

Job description

## **Company Overview** STACK Infrastructure builds, owns, and operates hyperscale and colocation data centers that power the world’s most ambitious technology companies. With a rapidly expanding footprint across APAC, STACK combines deep development expertise, flexible capital, and operational discipline to deliver critical digital infrastructure at scale. Our clients include the largest hyperscale cloud platforms. We are building a regional platform defined by speed of delivery, power reliability, and long-term partnership — and we are assembling the team to lead that effort. **Summary/Objective** STACK is seeking an experienced Critical Operations Director to establish and lead the Operations function for its Melbourne data centre campus. Reporting to the VP Critical Operations (Aust), this role has end-to-end accountability for site safety, operational readiness, reliability, customer service and the performance of all mission-critical mechanical, electrical, plumbing, fire life safety, controls and base-building systems. This is a senior people leadership role for a proven leader who has successfully managed 100+ employees, including managers, supervisors and frontline technical teams. The Director will recruit, develop and lead the Operations team, work collaboratively across STACK, build trusted customer relationships and create an inclusive, accountable and high-performing culture. All Critical Operations staff report through this role. Candidates may come from data centres or other complex mission-critical environments, including Defence, naval operations, aviation, utilities, power generation, transport, healthcare or large-scale industrial operations. Direct data-centre experience is advantageous but is not essential where the candidate can demonstrate leadership of large technical workforces, operational readiness, asset reliability and incident command in a high-consequence 24/7 environment. This role directly supports STACK’s commitment to **100% uptime** and a **concierge-level customer service experience**, ensuring risk is proactively managed, planned works are executed safely, and customer communications are clear, timely and professional. **Essential Functions** *Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform these essential functions.* **People Leadership and Team Performance** • Provide visible, accountable and people-centred leadership for an operational workforce of 100+ employees across multiple shifts, technical disciplines and leadership levels. • Lead through managers and supervisors while remaining connected to frontline teams, setting clear priorities, modelling STACK values, ensuring consistent standards and maintaining effective escalation across every shift. • Build the campus Operations team from day one, owning workforce planning, recruitment, onboarding, retention, succession planning and development as the site ramps into full operation. • Set and actively manage performance expectations through regular leadership meetings, 1:1 sessions, coaching and talent reviews; ensure employees are trained and competent; recognise strong performance; and address performance issues promptly and consistently. • Create an inclusive, accountable and high-performing culture in which leaders collaborate, employees are empowered to make sound decisions and teams remain aligned to customer and operational priorities. **Operational Leadership and Reliability** • Lead a standardised culture of always working safely and take full accountability for the readiness, uptime, reliability and day-to-day operation of the campus. • Provide credible technical leadership across mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems, fire life safety, controls and other mission-critical infrastructure. • Ensure preventive and predictive maintenance programs, technical procedures and critical work packages are executed safely through robust change management, protecting live operations during construction and commissioning. • Lead critical operational decisions and the response to abnormal conditions, incidents and emergencies, including customer communications, root-cause analysis and corrective action tracking. • Manage site systems, capacity and efficiency using CMMS, EPMS and BMS to avoid customer-impacting outages and support informed operational decisions. **Collaboration, Customer Service and Commercial Management** • Work collaboratively with the VP Critical Operations (Aust) and across Engineering, Construction, Commissioning, Security, Commercial, Customer, Finance and Procurement to deliver coordinated outcomes for the campus. • Build trusted relationships with customers and act as the senior operational leader for the campus, providing clear, timely and professional communication on inquiries, planned work, incidents, risks and service performance. • Champion STACK’s concierge-level customer service, ensure the team understands customer contracts and SLAs, and resolve escalations with empathy, sound judgement and a solutions-focused approach. • Maintain clear, timely and professional customer communication before, during and after planned works, incidents and service-impacting events. • Manage vendor performance, service contracts, procurement, billing and compliance with agreed KPIs and SLAs. • Develop and manage site CAPEX and OPEX budgets, balancing reliability, safety, customer commitments and total cost of ownership. • Drive operational excellence through proactive planning, risk management, continuous improvement, site projects, reporting, audits and compliance activities; advise the VP Critical Operations (Aust) on performance, risks and priorities. • Maintain on-call availability and provide senior leadership during emergency situations or significant operational events. **Competencies** • Proven senior people-management experience leading 100+ employees, including managers, supervisors and frontline technical staff in a complex 24/7 environment. • Proven ability to recruit, build, inspire and develop high-performing technical teams, with strong coaching, succession planning and performance-management capability. • Highly collaborative leadership style, with demonstrated success partnering across Operations, Engineering, Construction, Commissioning, Security, Commercial, Customer, Finance and Procurement to deliver coordinated outcomes. • Customer-focused leader with demonstrated ability to build trusted relationships, manage expectations, resolve escalations and deliver clear, timely and professional service. • Sufficient technical credibility to lead and challenge senior mechanical, electrical, controls, fire and facilities specialists. The successful candidate does not need to be the subject-matter expert in every discipline but must demonstrate sound technical judgement, disciplined risk management and the ability to make informed operational decisions. **Work Environment** • Based on-site at Truganina Campus, Melbourne, with travel, on-call availability and work outside standard hours as required. **Required Education and Experience** • Extensive experience leading operations within a live data centre, Defence environment or other high-consequence mission-critical operation, with accountability for a workforce of 100+ employees, operational readiness, safety, asset reliability and emergency response. • Proven record of recruiting, coaching, developing and retaining managers, supervisors and frontline technical teams, including succession planning and consistent performance management. • Demonstrated success working collaboratively across functions and influencing senior stakeholders to deliver coordinated operational outcomes. • Demonstrated customer-service leadership, including building trusted relationships and communicating clearly during planned works, incidents and service escalations. • Demonstrated experience managing maintenance, vendors, complex projects, customers and significant site budgets, with strong knowledge of service-level obligations, regulatory compliance and relevant building-code requirements. Direct experience with data centre SLAs is advantageous but not essential. **Preferred Education and Experience** • Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Facilities Management, Business or a related discipline, or equivalent military, operational or professional experience. • Senior command, engineering, sustainment or operational leadership experience within the Australian Defence Force or an allied Defence organisation will be highly regarded. **Additional Eligibility Requirements** • Willingness to work outside normal business hours, including weekends, public holidays and on-call support, in a high-pressure environment. **Work Authorisation/Security Clearance Requirements** • Full Australian working rights and ability to pass background checks and attain and maintain NV1 security clearance where required. **Equal Opportunity Employer** STACK provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, colour, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state or local laws. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruitment, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, redundancy, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation and training. **Other Duties** Please note that this job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities required of the employee for this role. Duties, responsibilities and activities may change at any time with or without notice.