Regional Data Centre Manager

PURPOSE OF THE ROLE

The Regional Data Centre Manager is required to provide professional guidance and management to direct and indirect reporting lines. The Regional Leader plays a critical part in planning, executing and managing the strategic aspects for the region.

The Regional Manager is responsible for ensuring that teams work together in delivering on the planned growth of the region whilst supporting environments in achieving the required operational stability and reliability benchmarks. Where feasible, the role will require active engagement across regional sites, leveraging central resources to assist in capacity building.

MAIN FUNCTIONS OF THE JOB

Data Centre Management

• Continuous evaluation of global best practices and share knowledge across all DC teams
• Mentor Data Center Managers in order to ensure a smooth operation of the facility
• Manage working methods to ensure that all SLA and MSA’s are achieved
• Analyse working ways to highlight gaps and implement processes/procedures/methods/efficiencies to improve performance
• Manage escalated support cases and lead appropriate internal technical resources and/or 3rd party vendors to resolution
• Participate in important negotiations with key stakeholders and assist in negotiations with difficult customers
• Ensure the effective management of data centre infrastructure to provide a concurrently maintainable, cost effective system supporting 99.999% electrical uptime, 99.99% mechanical uptime and 99.99% cabling infrastructure uptime.
• Active participation in new data centre builds or expansions
• Ensure that all critical components are monitored and that alerts are actioned with urgency
• Ensure comprehensive Root Cause analysis are completed for all incidents/outages
• Ensure that records, drawings and schematics of the data centre environment/s are maintained and centrally stored
• Develop and implement action-orientated monthly reports
• Explore opportunities for partnerships across other regions and business areas
• If H&S incident occurs, act in capacity of Incident Investigator and compile report for distribution on internal system and to Department of Labour
• Aid in measuring contractor performance, weekly, monthly & quarterly meetings
• Quick responses to potentially critical situations
• 3rd party vendor management and service delivery
• Active involvement in network, physical and cyber security matters
• Conduct service forums/reviews, hosting key stakeholders
• Find ways to automate and innovate

Compliance, Audit & Risk

• Ensure compliance is maintained incorporating industry best practices
• Ensure data centre facilities best practices are enforced, maintained and improved
• Ensure data Centre cleaning standards are enforced and maintained
• Implement company and departmental policies, processes and work instructions as per the agreed quality and timeline/RFS
• Risk identification and mitigation
• Ensure adherence to all relevant standards and policies
• Active involvement in all audits
• Ensure that inter-departmental OLA’s (Operational Level Agreement) are met
• ESG and related actions are executed and closed

SKILLS REQUIREMENT

Finance

• Develop and manage the regional budget and provide input and recommendations on the budget
• Budgetary reporting
• Timeous approval of purchase orders and invoices

Leadership

• Innovate and make decisions independently, while also taking direction when given
• Ability to work in a highly collaborative environment, influencing and establishing effective networks
• High-level of Emotional Intelligence (Influencing skills, Interpersonal awareness, Resilience and Composure).
• Active involvement with staff onboarding
• Guide and develop staff by working with HR to ensure skills, training and performance requirements are met
• Define personal development plans for direct reports including training plans
• Define measurable KPI’s for direct reports
• Support and adhere to BEE targets when onboarding new resources
• Diversify skills across various teams while mitigating risks of key-man dependencies
• Excellent communication skills and ability to interact professionally with a diverse group of clients, colleagues, and staff
• Interact with all levels of the organization in a professional and tactful manner
• Provide guidance and mentorship to direct and indirect reporting staff
• Ability to create, manage, and develop a team remotely
• Attend weekly team meetings to provide guidance and communicate points from Operations Management meeting downstream

Administrative duties

• Ensure compliance with internal policies and regulations
• Change and incident management
• Ensure adherence to all established guidelines and management practices for employees
• Occupational Health and Safety responsibilities
• Report accurately, as per agreed format, quality, and timelines
• Outstanding organizational skills, ability to prioritize effectively, and experience with technical project management
• Ensure all Incident Reports (Client & Non-Client) are updated, grammatically correct, and ready for distribution and signed off daily

Client satisfaction

• Work with internal and external stakeholders to align the business towards providing services that enhance client service and retention
• Ensure client satisfaction by providing an optimal level of customer service, in line with company objectives
• Client support responsibilities can include, but are not limited to, client relations, responding to client inquiries, and coordinating with other organizations
• Meet defined client survey and reporting targets
• Ability to understand client urgency and sensitivity of problem/incident/request
• Manage all regional client escalations and ensure feedback is provided to clients within defined timelines, with reports submitted and signed off within 24 – 48 hours

Behavior

• Adopt a mindset of continuous improvement
• Lead by example
• Be on the lookout for constant process improvements
• Grow our people
• Deliver to our shareholders
• Respect each other
• Embrace diversity
• Uphold the highest levels of integrity
• Serve our clients
• Be highly service-oriented, reliable, responsible, self-motivated, and enthusiastic
• Work productively in cross-functional teams or resourcefully and independently as an individual
• Focus on continued learning and self-development

Information Security

• Identify and manage risks regarding Teraco’s information assets & systems, including risks related to confidentiality, availability, and integrity.

General

• Open to provide after-hours support as needed for significant issues
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills
• Excellent technical abilities
• Proactive problem-solving
• Ensure the emergency preparedness plan per site is updated regularly, with contacts, resigned contacts, and re-appointments done

QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE

• Electrical and/or mechanical qualification preferable
• Cabling qualification preferable
• Minimum 7 years relevant data centre experience
• +7 years’ experience managing teams, including line management, appraisals, performance reviews, hiring new team members, and participating in disciplinary matters, financial management, etc.
• Extensive knowledge of Data Centre environments and critical infrastructure systems e.g. Cabling, Cooling, Power
• Experience of Data Centre KPIs (incident ticket related matters, time to solve tickets, physical security, infrastructure metrics, staff, safety, overall operations)