Director, Data Center Equipment Category Manager

• Lead and develop a team of category managers across electrical, mechanical, and modular equipment, while personally owning Lambda's most critical categories, sourcing events, and negotiations
• Own the multi-year category strategy for Lambda's datacenter infrastructure equipment — transformers, MV/LV switchgear, generators, UPS, busway, power distribution, chillers, CDUs, air handling and liquid cooling systems, and prefabricated and modular power and cooling solutions
• Secure supply in a constrained market — reserve manufacturing slots, negotiate capacity commitments and framework agreements, and align supplier capacity with Lambda's multi-site demand forecast
• Lead end-to-end sourcing events (RFI, RFP, RFQ) from specification through supplier selection, award, and contract execution
• Serve as Lambda's lead negotiator on the highest-value equipment agreements — master supply agreements, pricing, lead times, warranties, liquidated damages, and performance guarantees — partnering with Legal and Finance on terms
• Partner with Design, Engineering, Construction, and Development to standardize specifications and basis-of-design across sites, driving volume aggregation and repeatable buys
• Sequence equipment awards and deliveries against live construction schedules to protect the critical path, and manage expediting, factory witness testing, logistics, and storage
• Own the owner-furnished vs. contractor-furnished equipment strategy, including installation, warranty, and commissioning interfaces with general contractors and EPCs
• Deliver systematic cost reduction through should-cost and total-cost-of-ownership models, design-to-cost, value engineering, and index-based pricing for commodities like copper and steel
• Build strategic partnerships with OEMs, integrators, and manufacturer representatives, and qualify new and second-source suppliers to reduce concentration risk
• Own supplier performance management — quality, on-time delivery, and safety — through scorecards, factory audits, and executive business reviews
• Identify and mitigate supply chain risks — lead time volatility, tariffs, commodity pricing, single-source exposure, and geopolitical disruption — and maintain contingency plans
• Set standards for category governance, contract templates, and spend and supplier data that scale with Lambda's growth
• Deliver executive-level briefings on category strategy, market conditions, supply risk, and savings performance
• Have 10+ years in strategic sourcing, procurement, or category management, with at least 5 years focused on datacenter, mission-critical, energy, or heavy industrial electrical and mechanical equipment
• Hold a Bachelor's degree in Supply Chain Management, Engineering, Business, Finance, or a related field, or have equivalent experience
• Have 5+ years of people leadership managing category managers or sourcing professionals, while staying hands-on in sourcing strategy and negotiations yourself
• Have owned multi-year category strategies for high-spend, supply-constrained equipment categories with material cost and continuity-of-supply impact
• Know the datacenter equipment supply base — major OEMs, integrators, and their manufacturing capacity, lead times, and pricing dynamics
• Are recognized as a lead negotiator — you have personally closed large master supply agreements and capacity commitments, not directed someone else to
• Have sequenced long-lead equipment against a live construction schedule and worked shoulder to shoulder with design, engineering, and construction teams
• Have set process, policy, or governance standards that an organization adopted
• Brief and persuade executives comfortably, internally and across the supplier base, and can build the business case that earns the decision
• Operate well in ambiguity, on compressed timelines, in a supply-constrained market
• Experience at a hyperscaler, AI cloud, colocation provider, or datacenter developer
• Experience on the OEM or integrator side — sales, commercial, or supply chain at an electrical or mechanical equipment manufacturer
• Hands-on experience with prefabricated and modular power or cooling solutions
• Experience with high-density AI infrastructure, including liquid cooling and CDUs
• Engineering background or technical fluency in electrical distribution and cooling systems
• Experience standing up a category management function or team where little existed

…