Director Critical Spares & Lifecycle Supply Chain

About Vantage Data Centers

Vantage Data Centers powers, cools, protects and connects the technology of the world’s well-known hyperscalers, cloud providers and large enterprises. Developing and operating across North America, EMEA and Asia Pacific, Vantage has evolved data center design in innovative ways to deliver dramatic gains in reliability, efficiency and sustainability in flexible environments that can scale as quickly as the market demands.

Business Operations Department

The North America Business Operations team enables the systems, processes, governance, and operating discipline required to support Vantage’s mission-critical data center portfolio at scale. The team partners closely with Site Operations, Reliability Engineering, Field Engineering, Global Procurement, Finance, Construction, Design Engineering, Safety, Security, and external service providers to improve operational readiness, reduce execution risk, and strengthen consistency across Vantage’s rapidly growing North America footprint.

As Vantage continues to scale, the availability, visibility, and lifecycle management of critical spare parts is a core operational capability. Critical spares directly support uptime, preventive and corrective maintenance, incident response, customer trust, and site readiness. This role will help move the organization from site-by-site practices and interim tracking toward a standardized, data-driven, and financially disciplined critical spares operating model.

Position Overview

This role will be based in Denver, CO, following our flexible work policy (3 days in-office and 2 days flexible), or it may be based remotely anywhere within the United States.

The Director, Critical Spares & Lifecycle Supply Chain, North America will lead the strategy, governance, and execution model for critical spare parts across Vantage’s North America data center portfolio.

This role is responsible for ensuring the right parts are identified, sourced, stocked, tracked, maintained, and available at the right locations to support uptime, maintenance readiness, incident response, and operational resilience. The Director will build and mature the critical spares program across sites, regions, suppliers, systems, and business partners while balancing operational risk, customer impact, working capital, storage capacity, supplier performance, and lifecycle cost.

This leader is accountable for the North America critical spares operating model, but success will depend on building strong working relationships with Global Procurement and other cross-functional partners. The role will work closely with Site Operations, Reliability Engineering, Field Engineering, Global Procurement, Finance, Construction, Design Engineering, ServiceNow/system owners, OEMs, distributors, logistics providers, and service partners to define standards, improve visibility, reduce supply risk, and ensure new and existing sites have a scalable model for spare parts readiness.

The ideal candidate is an experienced supply chain and operations leader with strong mission-critical judgment. They understand that critical spares are not simply inventory. They are an operational risk control, a financial discipline, and a readiness capability that must work across fast-growing, multi-site, always-on environments. They also know how to lead through influence, create alignment with procurement partners, and make shared operating models work across regional and global functions.

Essential Job Functions

Critical Spares Strategy & Governance

• Develop and lead the North America critical spares strategy across Vantage’s data center portfolio, including existing sites, new site readiness, regional support models, and lifecycle planning.

• Define the governance model, standards, decision rights, and operating cadence for critical spares planning, stocking, fulfillment, replenishment, escalation, and end-of-life management.

• Establish clear criteria for part criticality, site-level stocking requirements, regional pooling, vendor-held inventory, emergency sourcing, and escalation paths.

• Partner with Site Operations and Reliability Engineering leaders to align critical spares strategy to uptime requirements, equipment risk, redundancy design, maintenance plans, site maturity, and customer impact.

• Create a repeatable model that reduces site-by-site variation while preserving the right level of local operational flexibility.

• Translate critical spares risks, tradeoffs, and investment needs into clear recommendations for senior operations leadership.

Demand Planning, Supply Planning & Inventory Optimization

• Build and maintain a rolling 12–18 month critical spares forecast tied to installed asset base, preventive maintenance plans, failure trends, commissioning activity, growth plans, new site openings, and lifecycle changes.

• Establish min/max levels, safety stock, reorder points, replenishment logic, and stocking models by site, region, equipment category, and criticality level.

• Balance uptime risk and service levels with working capital, carrying cost, excess and obsolete inventory, storage limitations, and emergency procurement costs.

• Develop a scalable new site readiness model to ensure critical spares are identified, sourced, received, validated, and positioned ahead of operational need.

• Partner with Finance, Operations, and Global Procurement to improve inventory valuation, forecast accuracy, capital and operating expense visibility, and inventory health.

• Identify opportunities to reduce expedite activity, prevent duplicative purchasing, and leverage economies of scale across sites and regions.

Supplier, OEM & Partner Management

• Own the North America critical spares strategy and operating requirements while partnering closely with Global Procurement to develop supplier strategies for critical spare parts, including OEMs, distributors, third-party logistics providers, warranty providers, and service partners.

• Partner with Global Procurement to inform negotiation of service levels, warranty terms, RMA processes, lead-time expectations, escalation paths, stocking commitments, and emergency response expectations based on operational risk and site readiness needs.

• Work with Global Procurement to track supplier performance against fill rate, lead time, quality, responsiveness, backorder recovery, issue resolution, and critical escalation metrics, ensuring operational concerns are visible and acted on.

• Identify and mitigate exposure related to single-source parts, long-lead components, obsolete parts, incomplete vendor spare part lists, and constrained supply.

• Partner with Design, Engineering, Construction, and Procurement to improve the quality, completeness, and standardization of vendor-supplied spare part lists.

• Build supplier accountability mechanisms in partnership with Global Procurement so supplier performance supports operational readiness, not just transactional purchasing.

Inventory Accuracy, Controls & Compliance

• Define inventory control standards, cycle count routines, physical inventory processes, reconciliation requirements, and audit expectations across North America sites.

• Ensure accurate part master data, BOM alignment, serial number tracking, warranty status, part location, shelf-life status, and asset linkage within relevant systems.

• Partner with Finance and Operations to improve inventory valuation, variance resolution, control discipline, audit readiness, and reporting accuracy.

• Establish processes for excess and obsolete inventory, shelf-life management, supersessions, last-time buys, return-to-vendor activity, and end-of-life planning.

• Improve visibility into where critical parts are located, whether they are usable, what equipment they support, and what risk is created when parts are missing, expired, misclassified, or not properly stored.

• Create practical field standards that are usable by site teams and sustainable in a 24/7 operating environment.

Emergency Fulfillment & Operational Readiness

• Develop standards for emergency spare parts response, including part identification, approval, release, transportation, escalation, usage documentation, and post-incident reconciliation.

• Ensure critical spares are accessible and available to support urgent incident response across Vantage’s 24/7 data center operations.

• Partner with Site Operations, Reliability Engineering, OMC, and Business Operations teams to define escalation paths, roles, and communication protocols during part-related incidents.

• Conduct readiness reviews, tabletop exercises, and post-incident lessons learned to identify gaps in availability, process, supplier response, and system visibility.

• Create leadership-level visibility into spare parts availability, stockout risks, high-risk components, supplier constraints, aging inventory, and recovery plans.

• Ensure the spares program supports operational resilience without creating unnecessary cost, clutter, or unmanaged local workarounds.

Systems, Data & Continuous Improvement

• Own the critical spares data and reporting roadmap across CMMS, ERP, WMS, procurement, ServiceNow, and business intelligence tools.

• Partner with system owners, Global Procurement, and site users to improve usability, reporting accuracy, data structure, and field adoption of inventory and spares management tools.

• Develop dashboards and KPIs to measure inventory accuracy, fill rate, stockout risk, emergency fulfillment, supplier performance, aging inventory, working capital impact, and open operational risk.

• Drive process standardization, automation, and continuous improvement across the critical spares lifecycle.

• Use data to identify systemic risk, improve forecasting accuracy, reduce expedite activity, strengthen supplier accountability, and support executive decision-making.

• Build practical mechanisms for site feedback so tool gaps, process friction, vendor issues, and improvement opportunities are visible and acted on.

Leadership & Cross-Functional Partnership

• Lead and develop a high-performing team, as applicable, responsible for spares planning, inventory governance, analytics, supplier coordination, and program execution.

• Influence cross-functional stakeholders across Site Operations, Reliability Engineering, Field Engineering, Global Procurement, Finance, Construction, Design Engineering, Safety, Security, OMC, and external partners.

• Establish clear operating rhythms, decision forums, and accountability mechanisms that define where this role owns the outcome, where Global Procurement owns commercial execution, and how both functions work together to keep critical spares work moving.

• Communicate program status, risks, investment needs, and performance trends to senior leadership in a clear, direct, and action-oriented manner.

• Build scalable processes that support Vantage’s rapid growth while maintaining operational discipline, financial stewardship, and ownership.

• Model Vantage’s core values of Trust, Accountability, Respect, and Agility through transparent decision-making, disciplined execution, and strong cross-functional partnership.

Job Requirements

Required

• 10+ years of experience in supply chain, inventory management, materials management, lifecycle supply chain, service parts, procurement, logistics, reliability operations, or mission-critical infrastructure operations.

• 5+ years of leadership experience, including direct or matrixed leadership of teams, programs, suppliers, or cross-functional operating models.

• Experience supporting data centers, critical facilities, utilities, manufacturing, high-tech hardware, energy, industrial equipment, telecommunications, or similarly uptime-sensitive environments.

• Strong understanding of demand planning, supply planning, inventory optimization, min/max methodology, safety stock, reorder points, cycle counting, supplier performance, and spare parts lifecycle management.

• Experience working with OEMs, distributors, third-party logistics providers, service partners, or warranty/RMA processes.

• Demonstrated ability to build or mature a program, governance model, operating standard, or cross-functional process in a scaling environment.

• Strong analytical skills with the ability to use data to identify risk, improve performance, make tradeoffs, and influence operational and financial decisions.

• Experience with ERP, CMMS, WMS, procurement, ServiceNow, inventory, asset management, or business intelligence systems.

• Ability to translate technical, operational, supplier, and financial tradeoffs into clear recommendations for senior leadership.

• Strong communication and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to influence across Operations, Engineering, Global Procurement, Finance, Construction, and external partners.

• Ability to travel across North America as needed to support site readiness, supplier engagement, program implementation, and operational reviews.

Preferred

• Bachelor’s degree in Supply Chain, Engineering, Operations, Business, Logistics, or a related field; equivalent experience considered.

• Experience with data center mechanical, electrical, power, cooling, controls, generator, UPS, switchgear, fire/life safety, network, or IT infrastructure spares.

• Experience building a critical spares program, inventory governance model, lifecycle supply chain function, or supplier performance framework from the ground up.

• Experience with warranty, RMA, reverse logistics, excess and obsolete inventory, last-time buys, shelf-life controls, supersession management, and end-of-life planning.

• Experience operating in a multi-site, regional, or global environment with distributed teams and varied site maturity.

• APICS/ASCM, Lean Six Sigma, PMP, ITIL, or similar certification.

• Familiarity with mission-critical operations, operational readiness, incident response, RCA processes, preventive maintenance, commissioning, and asset lifecycle management.

Success Measures

• Improved critical spares availability and reduced stockout risk across North America sites.

• Increased inventory accuracy, stronger audit readiness, and improved control discipline.

• Reduced emergency procurement, expedite activity, and preventable operational escalations.

• Clear visibility into spares availability, open risks, supplier performance, aging inventory, and lifecycle exposure.

• Scalable critical spares standards implemented across new and existing sites.

• Improved alignment between Site Operations, Reliability Engineering, Business Operations, Global Procurement, Finance, Construction, and Engineering.

• Stronger new site readiness, with critical spares identified, sourced, validated, and positioned before operational need.

• Better use of data to support spare parts forecasting, supplier accountability, financial planning, and executive decision-making.

Physical Demands and Special Requirements 

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. While performing the duties of this job, the employee is occasionally required to stand; walk; sit; use hands to handle, or feel objects; reach with hands and arms; climb stairs; balance; stoop or kneel; talk and hear. The employee must occasionally lift and/or move up to 25 pounds. 

Additional Details  

• Salary Range: $205,000 - 230,000 (this range is based on Colorado market data and may vary in other locations) 

• This position is eligible for company benefits including but not limited to medical, dental, and vision coverage, life and AD&D, short and long-term disability coverage, paid time off, employee assistance, participation in a 401k program that includes company match, and many other additional voluntary benefits  

• Compensation for the role will depend on a number of factors, including your qualifications, skills, competencies, and experience and may fall outside of the range shown. 

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We operate with No Ego and No Arrogance. We work to build each other up and support one another, appreciating each other’s strengths and respecting each other’s weaknesses. We find joy in our work and each other, actively seeking opportunities to inject fun into what we do. Our hard and efficient work is rewarded with an above market total compensation package. We offer a comprehensive suite of health and welfare, retirement, and paid leave benefits exceeding local expectations.

Throughout the year, the advantage of being part of the Vantage team is evident with an array of benefits, recognition, training and development, and the knowledge that your contribution adds value to the company and our community.

Don't meet all the requirements? Please still apply if you think you are the right person for the position. We are always keen to speak to people who connect with our mission and values.

Vantage Data Centers is an Equal Opportunity Employer

Vantage Data Centers does not accept unsolicited resumes from search firm agencies. Fees will not be paid in the event a candidate submitted by a recruiter without an agreement in place is hired; such resumes will be deemed the sole property of Vantage Data Centers.