Director, Site Selection, Energy & Permitting

AI Infrastructure Platform – Phase 1 Deployment
Location: GCC or Europe (flexible)

We’re supporting a well-capitalised AI infrastructure platform at the very start of a global rollout.

Phase 1.

Multiple markets.

Serious scale.

They’ve secured backing.
They’re building the team.
Now they need the person who decides where and how this gets powered.

The Mandate

Own and build the global site-selection and energy strategy.

Not just identifying land.

But securing scalable, power-secure, commercially viable locations that support long-term AI deployment.

This role sits at the intersection of:

• Power markets

• Grid access

• Permitting strategy

• Financial modelling

• Risk evaluation

You’ll report directly to senior leadership and play a defining role in shaping the deployment pipeline.

This is upstream influence at its purest.

What You’ll Be Doing

• Evaluating markets and individual sites based on grid availability, tariff structures, scalability and permitting timelines

• Leading negotiations for land control, interconnection agreements and power supply

• Managing permitting, environmental and grid-connection processes through entitlement

• Building and refining site-scoring tools (cost, timing, ESG, execution risk)

• Working closely with the Design & Technical Lead to ensure engineering assumptions align with site realities

• Presenting investment summaries to ExCo with risk-adjusted financial metrics

This isn’t theoretical strategy.

It’s execution-driven site origination with commercial accountability.

The Profile

We’re looking for someone who understands that in AI infrastructure, power is the product.

Likely background:

• 8-12 years within energy, power infrastructure or data centre development

• Proven experience navigating grid interconnection and utility negotiations

• Strong exposure to permitting and entitlement processes

• Familiarity across European and ideally GCC regulatory environments

• Comfortable managing utilities, regulators, EPCs, consultants and local authorities

• Strong analytical capability with the ability to model risk-adjusted site economics

You need to be commercially sharp, politically aware and technically credible.

Why This Role?

• Greenfield global AI deployment strategy

• Direct access to executive decision-making

• Influence over capital allocation and market entry

• Ability to build a scalable, repeatable site-selection engine from scratch

If you’ve built power-secure pipelines before – and want to do it on a global AI platform from day one – this is a high-impact move.

Happy to discuss in confidence.