Director of Data Center EMEA/APAC

JLL empowers you to shape a brighter way. Our people at JLL are shaping the future of real estate for a better world by combining world-class services, advisory and technology for our clients. We are committed to hiring the best, most talented people and empowering them to thrive, grow meaningful careers and to find a place where they belong. Whether you’ve got deep experience in commercial real estate, skilled trades or technology, or you’re looking to apply your relevant experience to a new industry, join our team as we help shape a brighter way forward.

Location: UK

Reports To: Director Data Center Operations – EMEA/APAC

Function: JLL/T – Global Technology

What this job involves:

• Reporting to the Global Head of Infrastructure Operations, the role holder is accountable for the I&O operational services & delivery portfolio within the JLL EMEA and APAC region.
• The ideal candidate must be a self-starter with proven technological leadership skills and the ability to work across multiple geos.
• Experience in managing mixed and multi-geography solutions and delivery models that underpin strategy and investment priorities.
• Strong technology and digital focus from solution to delivery, with a broad understanding of key principles of security and privacy, risk management and quality improvement which are regarded as core foundational skills.
• Have a strong delivery focus, including success in leveraging and leading 3rd party and external partner relationships, including large tech companies as well as small novel tech partners.

What your day-to-day will look like:

• Manage the availability of IT Infrastructure services working in partnership with 3rd party providers.
• Monitor and report regularly to key stakeholders IT performance relative to service commitments.
• Define & deliver a continual improvement plan in line with the IT Strategy & Roadmap.
• Create and deliver proposals for improving systems performance and enhancing delivery.
• Budgetary responsibility/management in relation to I&O across the EMEA and APAC region.
• Act as the key liaison across all functional areas, including business units, the information technology department, and outside vendors.
• Ensure ALL Infrastructure related Incidents and work requests are appropriately prioritized and dealt with in line with agreed SLAs.
• Input into (EMEA-APAC) IT Infrastructure & Operational suite of reporting and metric packs ensuring regular meaningful MI is provided to JLL requestors within the process.
• Major technology project engagement – early engagement on major technology projects run by all towers.
• Vendor engagement – build effective relationships with key vendors and develop and maintain an understanding of their product roadmaps.
• Develop a knowledge and comprehension of the JLL Technology strategy and road map to a point where it can be communicated to the business stakeholders of all levels in a language they will understand.
• Oversee the launch of regional CI&A solutions and help to maximize the positive impact on the organization.
• Collaborating with the Project Management Office on the intake process and prioritization of candidate projects across the region.

Required Skills and Experience:

• 10+ years of experience leading infrastructure or cloud operations within large scale enterprise environments.
• Deep expertise in managing multi-cloud environments (Azure and AWS) across production, development, and hybrid workloads.
• Demonstrated success managing MSPs or outsourced service providers, including SLA governance, performance management, and contract oversight.
• Strong technical understanding of cloud networking, security, and automation principles, including Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, CloudFormation).
• Experience with cloud monitoring and observability platforms (Datadog, Azure Monitor, CloudWatch) and incident management processes.
• Proven ability to implement cloud cost optimization and capacity planning strategies, maintaining strict budgetary controls.
• Familiarity with reliability frameworks such as Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) and data-driven operational measurement (SLA, SLO, SLIs).
• Exposure to container orchestration (Kubernetes, AKS, EKS) and service mesh architecture.
• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Engineering, or related field (or equivalent experience).

Desirable Skills:

• Minimum of 15 years in a Technology leadership role or equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Strong customer and delivery focus, meeting and exceeding customer experience.
• Experience of operating at a senior management level in IT, preferably global business, experience in delivering through a range of IT operating models including on premise, shared and outsourced operating including IaaS.
• Demonstratable IT Domain Knowledge including:

• Network: SDWAN, VPN, Switching, Routing, NGFW.
• Communications: Teams/ WebEx.
• Collaboration Tools (SharePoint, O365, Confluence).
• Compute: HCI, VMware, Nutanix, Nasuni.
• VDI Solutions: Citrix, AWS.
• Storage: SAN, NAS, DELL/EMC, Solid State, NetApp.
• Service Management: ITIL, IPC, ServiceNow.
• Knowledge of Public/Private cloud Platforms (Azure/AWS).

Location: On-site – London, GBR

If this job description resonates with you, we encourage you to apply even if you don’t meet all of the requirements. We’re interested in getting to know you and what you bring to the table!