VP Strategic Planning and Design

As our Vice President of Strategic Planning and Design (m/f/d), you will be accountable for end-to-end development execution across the Americas and European regions — from origination through notice-to-proceed (NTP). This role leads all commercial and technical due diligence, manages regional development pipelines, and ensures that every project enables NTT Global Data Centers’ growth, financial, and sustainability targets.
This leader serves as both a strategic developer and leader to local teams, elevating commercial rigor, and ensuring that every decision from land acquisition through construction start supports the original investment case.

What you will do

• Strategic & Development Leadership
  • Define and execute a regional development strategy aligned with corporate priorities and customer demand.
  • Translate enterprise strategy into market-level action plans that balance speed, cost, power access, and risk.
  • Serve as a strategic advisor within the Global Development, Investment, and Product teams, providing deep regional intelligence on capacity, policy, and competition.

• End-to-End Development Accountability
  • Lead origination and full due diligence across land, power, water, fiber, permitting, and environmental risk.
  • Maintain and execute a multi-year development pipeline across key metros, enabling predictable growth and capacity readiness.
  • Oversee the preparation and approval of investment cases, ensuring each project’s commercial, technical, and financial inputs are validated and traceable.
  • Manage site readiness and project handoff to construction in line with business case performance metrics.

• Cross-Functional & Organizational Leadership
  • Collaborate with Design, Power & Energy, Construction, Operations, and Finance to ensure projects are fully aligned before execution.
  • Champion a standardized development governance model, ensuring consistent diligence, documentation, and risk review across regions.
  • Lead regional mentoring and thought leadership, fostering strong local leadership teams and a culture of accountability, speed, and collaboration.

• Capital Alignment & External Engagement
  • Partner with Finance and Investment to align development pacing and capital deployment with global priorities.
  • Cultivate high-value relationships with utilities, regulators, developers, and public agencies to accelerate approvals and infrastructure readiness.
  • Represent NTT’s development platform at regional forums to build visibility, credibility, and pipeline access.

• Performance & Lifecycle Accountability
  • Establish mechanisms to track business case performance through the project lifecycle — ensuring capital efficiency, schedule integrity, and yield realization.
  • Lead post-project performance reviews to refine future investment and development strategy.

What we are looking for

• Bachelor’s degree required; MBA, JD, or advanced technical degree preferred.
• Extensive experience in real estate strategy and/or development in a leadership role.
• Experience in mission-critical or highly regulated industries strongly preferred.
• Multiple years of international experience in real estate site selection, acquisition, or large-scale infrastructure development, preferably within data centers, technology, or industrial sectors.
• Strong financial literacy, including development economics and capital planning alignment.
• Expertise in regulatory navigation, environmental permitting, and utility coordination across diverse jurisdictions.
• Proven ability to lead multidisciplinary, distributed teams and manage complex, concurrent projects.
• Strategic communicator and mentor capable of building confidence, alignment, and execution focus at all levels.