POSITION

REPORTS TO

DATE

COMPANY WEBSITE

 

SEARCH CONTACT

VICE PRESIDENT OF DATA CENTER PRACTICES

Michael Morris – SVP Design & Construction

February 2021

https://www.alignedenergy.com/

 

Andy Lane @ CFS Partners

M   +1.414.807.4085

E   andy@criticalfacility.com

COMPANY OVERVIEW

Aligned is an infrastructure technology company that offers adaptable colocation and build-to-scale solutions to cloud, enterprise, and managed service providers. Their intelligent infrastructure allows densification and vertical growth within the same footprint, enabling customers to scale up without disruption, all while maintaining industry-leading Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE). By reducing the energy, water and space needed to operate, Aligned’s data center solutions, combined with their patented cooling technology, offer businesses a competitive advantage by improving reliability and their bottom line.

HISTORY

Aligned, privately held and headquartered in Plano, Texas, was founded and entered the data center business in 2015. When it entered the data center business five years ago, Aligned Energy knew how difficult it can be to predict the future. That’s why it created a flexible data center design that can increase power capacity as a customer adds servers, even within its existing footprint, delivering an invaluable business advantage.

Along with a focus on continuously improving economic performance for its customers, Aligned has also focused on sustainability. By making critical infrastructure smart enough to continuously improve both its economic performance and environmental impact, Aligned can deliver “a noticeable business advantage, while helping secure the health of the planet” for its customers.  

Today, the company operates six data centers in four US metro markets – Dallas, Phoenix, Northern Virginia, and Salt Lake City. The combination of Aligned’s intellectual property, access to healthy and patient capital, intellectual property, and culmination of assets has created a truly unique, adaptable, and unmatched global platform.

ALIGNED ENERGY DATA CENTER LOCATIONS

ASHBURN DATA CENTER

According to 451 Research, Northern Virginia is the United States’ largest data center market.

  • 26 Building Acres
  • 777,755 Sq. Ft.
  • 180 Megawatts

DALLAS DATA CENTER

According to 451 Research, Dallas, Texas is a top 5 U.S. multi-tenant data center market.

  • 19 Building Acres
  • 375,000 Sq. Ft.
  • 60 Megawatts

PHOENIX DATA CENTER

According to 451 Research, Phoenix is a top 10 U.S. multi-tenant data center market.

  • 55 Building Acres
  • 550,000 Sq. Ft.
  • 180 Megawatts

SALT LAKE CITY DATA CENTER

According to 451 Research, Salt lake City is a top 10 U.S. multi-tenant data center market.

  • 55 Building Acres
  • 600,000 Sq. Ft.
  • 130 Megawatts
PRODUCTS AND SERVICES
Colocation

Our colocation solution delivers the security and performance you trust, plus 100% uptime reliability. We give you on-demand cloud economics with our dynamic infrastructure and flexible business model. Aligned’s Delta Cube arrays offer the capability to densify by scaling both vertically and horizontally, all within the same footprint, from 1 kW to 50 kW per cabinet.

Build-to-Scale

Let us deliver a new data center to suit your specifications with flexible solutions ranging from Powered Shell, to Powered Shell with MEP, and Managed Colocation. With decades of engineering, building, owning, and operating critical infrastructure, our speed of delivery is second to none. Leveraging a standardized supply chain methodology, proven technologies and best-of-breed partners, Aligned’s data center builds can be delivered in as few as six months. We can also provision initial deployments of 2 to 20+ MWs of capacity, and scale beyond in as little as 12 weeks.

Aligned AccessTM

Aligned Access provides high reliability connections and lowlatency transport wherever you need to go. Seamlessly expand your reach and dynamically connect to customers and partners; cloud, IT service and network providers; Internet Exchange platforms; and Internet Service Providers found within our data centers as well as beyond them.

INFRASTRUCTURE
Adaptive

Aligned’s data centers can adapt on demand, keeping capacity, performance, and reliability in sync regardless of how quickly your requirements change. Rapidly scale your power density up to 50 kW per cabinet from the same footprint, saving you time, money, and resources.

Efficient

While guaranteeing 100% uptime for your mission-critical IT infrastructure, Aligned’s data center offering requires up to 80% less power (significantly reducing tenant Total Cost of Operation); up to 85% less water with the ability to run waterless as required, significantly reducing points of failure and expense; and up to a 40% lower cost of infrastructure. Better environmental performance results in better economic performance.

Sustainable

Our patented cooling technology, Delta Cube, is ultra-efficient and sustainable. It supports standard and high-power densities and offers an industry-leading 1.15 PUE. Delta Cube provides 350 kW of heat rejection in just four feet, compared to 38 feet of traditional Computer Room Air Conditioning (CRAC) units. Aligned offers multiple alternative electricity / renewable energy options at each of our data center locations.

ALIGNED ENERGY LEADERSHIP TEAM

Andrew Schaap

CEO

Company Profile

LinkedIn Profile

Phil Lawson-Shanks

CIO

Company Profile

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David Robinson

General Counsel & EVP, Strategic Development

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Tim Shaheen

EVP, Strategy & Development

Company Profile

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Michael Chai

SVP, Sales

Company Profile

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Billie Haggard

SVP Operations

Company Profile

Frank Eagle

SVP Partnerships & Alliances

Company Profile

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Michael Morris

SVP, Design & Construction

Company Profile

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TBD

VP, Data Center Technologies

Joanna Soucy

VP, Brand Strategy

Company Profile

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Mercy Manning

VP, Sales & Sustainability Strategy

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Tim Chandler

VP, Office Program Management & Security

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FINANCIAL PARTNERS

Data centers are a capital-intensive business. These partnerships provide the financial backing for our expansion and to help you meet your data center growth requirements.

Macquarie Infrastructure Partners (MIP) is an investment fund managed by Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets (MIRA). MIRA owns, operates and invests in a portfolio of infrastructure businesses. MIRA’s businesses tend to be large scale and capital intensive. They employ high-value, long-lived physical assets that serve, in part, to create a privileged position in their respective markets.

Take a closer look at Macquarie Infrastructure Partners.

 

The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. is a leading global investment banking, securities and investment management firm that provides a wide range of financial services to a substantial and diversified client base that includes corporations, financial institutions, governments and individuals.

Take a closer look at Goldman Sachs.

COMPANY MISSION

Aligned’s culture embodies the dynamics of a start-up, focusing on smart, strategic thinking which leads to creative partnering. Modeling the Aligned mission and its principles with an intense sense of commitment, customer intimacy, and energy.

We are engineers. But we’re also scientists, controls integrators, builders and operators with decades of experience architecting critical infrastructure solutions. We’re a group of people who have devoted our careers to not just solving the challenges in front of us, but anticipating what’s ahead.

  • A data-driven approach to delivering the data center – we’ve replaced hunches with data and we systemically iterate to achieve ever better results.
  • Investment in the research and development necessary to drive innovation; that investment in R&D extends to our supply chain partners as well.
  • Constantly striving for better, simpler, more efficient solutions – for your business, our business, and the good of the planet.

Aligned’s mission is to make critical infrastructure smart enough to continuously improve both its economic performance and environmental impact, delivering a noticeable business advantage, while helping secure the health of the planet.

CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITIES

Aligned is committed to supporting our Corporate Social Responsibility priorities:

VICE PRESIDENT OF DATA CENTER PRACTICES

Aligned’s decision to formalize the Vice President of Data Center Practices (VPDCP) position reflects its already considerable success in their Go-To-Market strategy to support large enterprise and hyperscale market’s increasingly broad and complex distributed IT infrastructure requirements. Aligned’s unique value proposition with existing and prospective customers requires a maturing of best data center practices along the entire continuum of concept, design, construction, commissioning, and subsequent operation of each data center as a part of a larger platform. As Aligned grows to meet the market’s new orders of magnitude of demand, the consistency, reliability, and uptime of data centers committed to cannot be threatened or compromised.

Reporting to Michael Morris, SVP Design & Construction, the VPDCP requires a uniquely seasoned Data Center MEP subject matter expert to ensure design intents result in effective and highly efficient data centers. The VPDCP will work across the continuum of data center delivery and turnover to operations with a particular focus on continuously progressive methods of cooling technologies, products, services, and outcomes. Aligned is a global leader in the delivery of highly scalable data centers and this growth in size and shape requires continuous attention to one of the most valued characteristics of the data center as viewed through the lens of the market, customers, investors, and the environment.

More specifically, the VPDCP is expected to –

  • Be a signatory authority for all project designs; validation of standards compliance and industry best practices.
  • Be a signatory authority for all commissioning scripts and reports; validation of design vs test conditions, validation of steps and procedures, and validation of pass/fail.
  • Be a signatory authority for critical operations or expansion procedures.
  • A signatory authority to call a project complete and ready for service.
  • A signatory authority for project deals (if deviating from standards).
  • Participate and signatory authority in capacity planning and updates.
  • Responsible to execute yearly site physicals. These physicals would be overall operational and performance assessments of each site.
  • Responsible to lead/chair any performance shortfalls or disputes.
  • In acquisitions, they would play key role in vetting installed conditions and capacities.
  • While I agree a mechanical PE is preferred, the candidate will need to be very well versed in mechanical, electrical, and controls.
  • Energy management experience is a plus.
  • Would be a data center subject matter expert.

 

KEY QUALIFYING CRITERIA

  • Data Center MEP Subject Matter Expert across a breadth of asset delivery
    • Technologies
    • Design
    • Construction
    • Procurement
    • Commissioning
    • Operations
  • Thought Leadership – Recognized and respected as credible and progressive by virtue of having written white papers, spoken at conferences, active in the community that shapes data center performance standards.
  • Ambitious – Eager and progressive mindset, willing to open dialogs and look at situations in new ways to improve outcomes for all parties involved.
  • Business Acumen – Keen understanding of the market dynamics which lead to a sophistication in the manner in which all parties involved are handled to achieve successful outcomes.
  • Financial Acumen – Cognizance of Aligned’s invested environment with requirements for investor rates of return as they relate to forecastable asset delivery and resulting value creation.
  • Executive Leadership – Demonstrated gravitas that naturally earns respect with the complex theatre of design, construction, contracting, supplier, and operations variables and influences.
  • Culture – Value Aligned’s DNA – Embody Integrity; Think Ahead; Respect Diversity: Never Stop Learning; Commit to Customer Success: Make an Impact; Inspire Innovation; Pursue Excellence; and Celebrate Success.

 

WHY CONSIDER THIS OPPORTUNITY WITH ALIGNED DATA CENTERS

Unique Value Propositions

  • Capital Partners – Blue Mountain Capital Management (BMCM) & Macquarie Infrastructure Partners (MIP) are global infrastructure funds which offer a culmination of assets which provide an unmatched global platform to Aligned’s prospective customers and partners.
  • Capital Partners – BMCM & MIP are uniquely flexible and patient in empowering Aligned to solve unique problems for customers in ways others simply cannot.
  • Aggressive – Aligned is poised and prepared to capitalize on deal terms and bring channel partners interesting and durable value propositions that they can bring to their customers.
  • Speed – Aligned is in the unique position, by design, to take down a lot of business in a short period of time.

Chapter – Aligned remains, both from a company history and culture mindset standpoint, an early-stage company with formidable growth planned. The Partners & Alliances initiative is part of this plan and is also in its beginning stages.

Culture – Aligned’s culture embodies the dynamics of a start-up, focusing on smart, strategic thinking which leads to creative partnering. The Aligned mission and its principles reflect an intense sense of commitment, customer intimacy, and energy.

Impact – The VP has a voice at the table with the senior leadership team and board when it comes to authoring and influencing the go to market strategy, creation, and formation of the Partnerships and Alliances program.

Focus – Less concerned with the market’s view and more focused on serving customer’s requirements effectively, Aligned wins through an intense commitment to remaining nimble, creative, scalable, and quick to respond, at scale.

 

COMPENSATION

The compensation package is expected to include a competitive base salary (relative to market and candidate’s current situation), annual performance compensation equal to 30% of base at target, health benefits, and long-term incentive compensation in the form of equity.

 

SEARCH PROCESS

CFS Partners makes limited, formal candidate recommendations to Michael Morris, SVP Design & Construction, following in depth understanding of candidate’s experiences relative to the VPDCP’s specific qualifying criteria. Initial calls with Michael Morris and Andrew Schaap, CEO, will qualify a subsequent short list of candidates introduced to the Senior Leadership Team.

For additional information or to schedule a time to connect, contact Andy Lane, Managing Partner at andy@criticalfacility.com.