Director of Business Development

Data Center Business Development Director Job Description

The Data Center Business Development Director is a senior commercial growth leader responsible for shaping and executing the company's strategy to scale its business around data center infrastructure, with an initial emphasis on edge data centers, distributed infrastructure, regional capacity needs, connectivity, power readiness, and mission-critical services. This role develops customer and partner relationships across the data center ecosystem, identifies near-term and emerging revenue opportunities, and builds a repeatable business development approach that can expand from edge and regional infrastructure into larger data center opportunities over time. The Director applies strong customer discovery, commercial growth orientation, technical-to-business translation, financial acumen, and influence skills to convert complex infrastructure needs into profitable, scalable business opportunities. This includes aligning solutions around power availability, grid readiness, cooling capacity, reliability, resiliency, sustainability, speed to market, scalability, risk reduction, and total cost of ownership.

Reports To: Chief Revenue Officer

Primary Industry Focus

• Edge data centers, distributed infrastructure, regional data center development, and scalable data center infrastructure services
• Colocation, enterprise, carrier-neutral facilities, network aggregation points, and regional cloud connectivity
• Utility, energy, power distribution, grid interconnection, backup power, and microgrid solutions
• Electrical infrastructure, switchgear, UPS, cooling, controls, building automation, and facility reliability services
• Telecommunications, fiber, network infrastructure, tower-adjacent infrastructure, and cloud connectivity
• Construction, engineering, EPC, maintenance, and mission-critical facility services that support scalable infrastructure growth

Key Responsibilities

• Lead business development strategy for edge data centers, distributed infrastructure, regional data center opportunities, colocation, enterprise infrastructure, power, energy, connectivity, and mission-critical facility services.
• Identify, qualify, develop, and close profitable opportunities with regional data center operators, colocation providers, enterprise customers, carriers, utilities, infrastructure developers, EPC firms, engineering partners, and strategic channel partners.
• Lead consultative customer discovery to uncover capacity requirements, power availability, resiliency needs, project timing, budget parameters, technical constraints, decision criteria, and stakeholder priorities.
• Build and maintain executive-level relationships with customers, owners, engineers, contractors, utility providers, OEMs, technology partners, connectivity providers, and internal executive sponsors.
• Develop territory, account, market-entry, and pursuit strategies tied to edge growth, regional capacity needs, power constraints, site readiness, connectivity demand, customer expansion plans, infrastructure investment, and competitive positioning.
• Create a repeatable business development model for scaling data center infrastructure services, including target account segmentation, partner channels, pursuit criteria, value propositions, pricing inputs, and handoff expectations for delivery teams.
• Translate complex technical solutions into clear customer outcomes, including reliability, resiliency, energy efficiency, speed to value, risk reduction, scalability, sustainability, and total cost of ownership.
• Partner with engineering, operations, finance, legal, estimating, delivery, and executive teams to shape proposals, pricing, commercial strategy, contract terms, risk positions, and implementation plans.
• Influence decisions across customer, utility, engineering, vendor, and internal leadership networks while negotiating trade-offs around cost, schedule, scope, risk, power availability, and technical feasibility.
• Apply disciplined financial and business-case thinking to long-cycle opportunities, including ROI, capital project economics, pricing strategy, margin management, forecasting, and deal execution.
• Track and communicate market trends such as edge compute demand, AI-enabled distributed workloads, regional capacity growth, high-density computing, liquid cooling, grid constraints, microgrids, renewable energy, regulatory requirements, sustainability commitments, and mission-critical construction trends.

Key Skills

• Strategic sales and business development leadership: Owns pipeline development, market strategy, account planning, solution selling, executive relationship management, complex deal negotiation, and revenue growth accountability for edge and scalable data center infrastructure opportunities.
• Customer discovery and consultative selling: Asks strong questions to uncover capacity, power, resiliency, timing, budget, stakeholder, and technical requirements while shaping opportunities around customer priorities.
• Scale-building capability: Builds repeatable growth motions, target account strategies, partner channels, commercial playbooks, qualification criteria, and handoff processes that allow the business to expand from initial edge opportunities into broader data center infrastructure services.
• Technical fluency and business translation: Demonstrates strong working knowledge of data center power systems, grid interconnection, cooling, electrical distribution, backup power, switchgear, UPS, controls, connectivity, construction timelines, commissioning considerations, and facility operations, and explains those solutions in terms of customer outcomes, risk reduction, and speed to value.
• Market intelligence and industry curiosity: Stays current on edge compute demand, AI-enabled distributed workloads, regional capacity drivers, site selection considerations, power availability, utility constraints, sustainability, regulatory requirements, competitor positioning, emerging technologies, and infrastructure investment trends.
• Financial and commercial acumen: Applies business-case thinking to ROI, capital project economics, pricing strategy, margin management, risk trade-offs, forecasting, deal structuring, and long-cycle sales execution.
• Influence, negotiation, and stakeholder management: Builds trust with senior leaders, aligns customers, utilities, engineering firms, contractors, OEMs, connectivity providers, internal delivery teams, finance, legal, and executive sponsors, and negotiates trade-offs around cost, schedule, scope, risk, power availability, and technical feasibility.
• Executive communication: Delivers strong presentations, proposals, executive briefings, customer discovery sessions, negotiation discussions, market updates, growth plans, and internal investment recommendations.

Required Experience and Qualifications

• 10+ years of progressive experience in business development, strategic account management, enterprise sales, sales engineering, utility partnerships, energy infrastructure, telecom infrastructure, mission-critical construction, or related commercial leadership roles.
• Demonstrated experience selling into, supporting, or partnering with edge data centers, regional data center operators, utilities, colocation firms, enterprise customers, connectivity providers, infrastructure developers, engineering firms, EPC partners, or mission-critical service providers.
• Strong familiarity with power distribution, grid interconnection, backup power, UPS, switchgear, cooling, controls, energy management, fiber/network infrastructure, construction sequencing, and mission-critical facility requirements.
• Proven ability to lead complex, multi-stakeholder sales cycles involving technical, financial, operational, legal, procurement, and executive decision makers.
• Experience developing strategic partnerships with engineering firms, contractors, utilities, OEMs, technology providers, energy partners, cloud ecosystem partners, or mission-critical service providers.
• Bachelor's degree in Business, Engineering, Construction Management, Energy, Technology, or a related field preferred; equivalent industry experience may be considered.
• MBA, advanced degree, or relevant technical/commercial certifications are a plus.

Success Measures

• Builds a qualified pipeline of edge, regional, and scalable data center infrastructure opportunities aligned to revenue, margin, and market growth objectives.
• Establishes a repeatable growth model for data center infrastructure services, including target markets, account segmentation, partner channels, pursuit criteria, value propositions, and commercial handoffs.
• Uses effective customer discovery to identify capacity, power, resiliency, timing, budget, stakeholder, and technical requirements early in the sales process.
• Develops executive-level relationships with priority accounts, regional data center operators, channel partners, utilities, EPCs, engineering firms, connectivity providers, and mission-critical ecosystem partners.
• Improves early-stage market visibility by identifying upcoming edge and regional infrastructure projects, customer investment plans, infrastructure constraints, competitive dynamics, and partnership opportunities.
• Converts complex customer needs into differentiated value propositions, proposals, and commercially viable solutions that reflect ROI, margin, risk, and delivery feasibility.
• Provides leadership with accurate forecasting, market intelligence, risk insight, and strategic recommendations that support disciplined growth investment decisions.

Total Rewards

• Competitive Base Salary
• Performance-Based Commission Plan
• Medical, Dental, and Vision Insurance
• 401(k) Retirement Plan with company match
• Paid Time Off (PTO) and company holidays

AAP/EEO Statement

NextEdge provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, or genetics. In addition to federal law requirements, NextEdge complies with applicable state and local laws governing nondiscrimination in employment in every location in which the company has facilities. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation, and training.

NextEdge expressly prohibits any form of workplace harassment based on race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, genetic information, disability, or veteran status. Improper interference with the ability of NextEdge employees to perform their job duties may result in discipline up to and including discharge.

Other Duties

Please note this job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee for this job. Duties, responsibilities, and activities may change at any time with or without notice.