Vice President, Economic Development and External Affairs

Volta; United States; On-site; USD 250,000 - 450,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

Retirement/pension contributions

Health, wellbeing and insurance

Vacation days

Job summary

Volta seeks a strategic leader to own global economic development and external affairs for its data centre footprint across Europe and North America.

You will sculpt incentive packages, manage public-private agreements, and build relationships with government, utilities and communities to accelerate site development.

The role requires navigating complex regimes, shaping playbooks, and growing a high-autonomy team in a fast-growing AI infrastructure company.

Qualifications

• Experience leading economic development for data centre development at hyperscalers, developers or operators.
• Data centre experience is essential.

Responsibilities

• Own Volta’s global economic development strategy across Europe and North America.
• Lead the structuring and negotiation of incentive packages and public-private agreements with legal, tax and finance teams.
• Build and manage relationships with national, state, regional governments, utilities and economic development agencies.
• Partner with site selection, power and real estate teams to assess markets and feed inputs into site decisions and financial models.
• Guide projects through entitlements, zoning, permitting and public consultation to keep approvals on the critical path.

Skills

Economic development

Public-private partnerships

Policy advocacy

Relationship management

Negotiation

Strategic planning

Stakeholder engagement

Team leadership

Job description

Volta is the category-defining, fully vertically integrated AI infrastructure platform – from capital to clusters to software, under a founder-led enterprise. Our mission is The Utility of Compute™: AI infrastructure as dependable and available as electricity, for every organization that needs it. Launched with a $10B strategic partnership with one of the leading frontier AI labs, a Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz, and a $5B AI Infrastructure Fund, Volta is building the infrastructure layer of the AI era from the ground up.

We are 100+ people across London, Palo Alto, and New York, with rapid growth expectations to hundreds.

About The Role

Volta is building gigawatt-scale AI factories across Europe and North America, and every one of them starts with a site, a community and a set of agreements that have to be right from day one. The Vice President, Economic Development and External Affairs owns that front end globally: the incentive and public funding packages, the public-private agreements, and the relationships with national, regional and local government, utilities, grid operators and communities that turn powered land into an AI factory Volta can build and operate for decades.

You will work alongside our site selection, power, legal, finance and delivery teams from the earliest look at a market through to operations, and you will be the face of Volta to the ministries, state agencies, county boards, municipalities and economic development organisations whose support we need. The regimes differ by market – state and local incentives and entitlements in the United States, permitting, grid connection and public funding processes in Europe – and you will set one Volta approach that works in each.

This is a build role. You will set the strategy, write the playbook and grow the economic development and external affairs function across both regions as our AI factories multiply. It suits someone who has negotiated large, complex data centre incentive agreements with their own name on them, who is comfortable in front of a council chamber and a board room in the same week, and who wants to do it at a company building from the ground up rather than maintaining a portfolio.

What You Will Be Doing

• Own Volta’s global economic development strategy, from market screening through to site-specific incentive, public funding and public-private agreements across Europe and North America.
• Lead the structuring and negotiation of incentive packages, tax abatements, infrastructure agreements and other public-private agreements for new sites and expansions, working with legal, tax and finance.
• Build and manage relationships with national, state and regional government, municipalities, economic development agencies, utilities and grid operators in Volta’s target markets.
• Partner with the site selection, power and real estate teams to assess markets, quantify incentive and public funding value and feed economic development inputs into site decisions and the financial model.
• Guide projects through entitlements, zoning, permitting and public consultation, working with legal, design and delivery teams to keep approvals on the critical path in each market.
• Design and lead community engagement for each site, including public hearings, local partnerships and workforce initiatives that earn long-term support for Volta’s presence.
• Own incentive and public funding compliance across the portfolio, ensuring every commitment Volta makes to a government or community is tracked, met and reported.
• Represent Volta externally with industry bodies, policy makers and the media on data centre development, energy and economic impact, in step with our communications team.
• Build and lead the economic development and external affairs function, including regional leads in Europe and North America, as the number of active sites grows.

What You Bring

• Experience leading economic development for data centre development at a hyperscaler, data centre developer or operator. Data centre experience is essential.
• A track record of negotiating and closing large, complex incentive and public-private agreements with government, including the tax, legal and compliance detail that accompanies them.
• Deep working knowledge of state and local government, land use, entitlements and the economic development landscape in major data centre markets, and the judgement to apply it in new jurisdictions.
• Experience working with utilities, grid operators and energy stakeholders on large load connection and infrastructure agreements.
• Experience of European permitting, grid connection and public funding regimes, or a clear record of building that expertise and the local partnerships quickly when entering new markets.
• Strong commercial judgement and the ability to quantify incentive value and present it clearly to finance and executive leadership.
• Credibility with senior public officials and community stakeholders, with excellent written and verbal communication.
• Experience building and leading a distributed team, and the ability to operate with a high degree of autonomy in a fast-growing company, with significant international travel.

What We Offer

At Volta, we believe people do their best work when they feel supported, trusted and able to grow. We’re building a company where you can make an impact, keep a healthy balance between work and life, and build a career you’re proud of.

As a global team, we do our best to provide great benefits wherever you’re based. While some benefits vary by country due to local regulations, we believe looking after our people is simply the right thing to do.

• Competitive salary based on the work you do here, not your previous salary
• Retirement/pension contributions
• Comprehensive health, wellbeing and insurance benefits
• Generous number of vacation days each year

Additional Information

Volta is an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to building a diverse and inclusive team and make employment decisions based on skills, qualifications, experience and business needs. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, colour, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, disability, veteran status or any other legally protected characteristic.

Accessibility

Volta is committed to providing an accessible recruitment experience for all candidates.

If you require accommodations or adjustments at any stage of the application or interview process, please contact us at [e-mail]. We will work with you to identify reasonable accommodations that enable you to participate fully in the hiring process.

Candidate Privacy Notice

By applying, you consent to the processing of your personal data for recruitment purposes in accordance with applicable data protection laws, including the UK GDPR, EU GDPR and relevant US state privacy regulations. Your data will be shared only with those involved in the hiring process and will not be used for unrelated purposes. For details, see our Recruitment & Candidate Privacy