Data Center Business Lead

WAGO Corporation is seeking a Data Center Business Lead to directly manage our Data Center Business Development Managers (BDMs) and head the Industry Management function. In this role, the Lead will establish a unified team direction and convert customer insights into commercial priorities. You will align regional and global stakeholders while steering WAGO toward scalable growth across hyperscale, colocation, OEM, system-integrator, and major end-user segments.

WAGO offers a competitive salary, company vehicle and a comprehensive benefits package including medical, dental, vision, company-paid insurance plans - life, AD&D, short-term disability and long-term disability, and a retirement 401k plan.

Experience and Qualifications:  

• Significant experience in industrial automation, electrical connectivity, controls, or adjacent technologies, with success in business development, product strategy, or sales leadership
• Proven track record of managing market-facing professionals, setting performance standards, and aligning individual execution to strategy
• Demonstrated ability to build and lead strategy in complex, evolving markets and create structure in ambiguous environments
• Working knowledge of Data Center infrastructure, automation, industrial computing, operational technology , and facility-to-IT system relationships is strongly preferred

Leadership Competencies

• Strategic clarity: distills complexity into choices, priorities, and a compelling direction
• Market curiosity: seeks evidence, tests assumptions, and anticipates customer and technology shifts
• People leadership: creates clarity, develops talent, manages performance, and builds an accountable, collaborative team
• Enterprise leadership: optimizes for WAGO’s overall success rather than a single function or region
• Decisiveness with discipline: makes timely recommendations using transparent criteria and available evidence
• Collaborative influence: creates alignment, accountability, and momentum across diverse stakeholders
• Commercial ownership: connects strategy and portfolio decisions to measurable customer and business outcomes
• Execution rigor: establishes cadence, follows through on commitments, and removes barriers to progress

Duties and Responsibilities:  

People Leadership and Team Performance                 

• Lead, coach, and develop the BDM team by setting clear objectives, responsibilities, performance standards, and account territories
• Establish a consistent management rhythm for pipeline reviews, strategic account planning, capability building, and obstacle resolution
• Integrate BDM resources and Industry Management functions to operate as a single, collaborative, and cross-functional team
• Assess resource needs, recommend organizational changes, support talent selection, and build long-term succession pipelines

Industry Strategy and Growth Steering 

• Lead the Industry Management process to continuous refine regional strategy, including market segmentation, target customer definitions, and routes to market
• Translate high-level strategy into actionable multi-year roadmaps and annual operating plans with defined milestones and measures
• Run business review cadences to identify performance gaps, resolve functional barriers, and allocate resources to high-value opportunities
• Coordinate regional priorities with global WAGO industry, product, and technology strategies while advocating for Americas requirements

Product Portfolio Intelligence

• Define the hardware, software, connectivity, and power portfolio required to win, providing product management and engineering with prioritized business requirements
• Synthesize competitor, technology, standards, and customer intelligence into actionable product recommendations and differentiated solution bundles
• Monitor competitive alternatives to determine where WAGO should defend, partner, adapt, or invest

Application Focus and Solutions Prioritization

• Apply a transparent framework (based on margin, market fit, and repeatability) to define focus applications and use cases
• Sponsor the creation of application architectures, reference designs, demonstrators, and sales tools for priority focus areas
• Prevent initiative proliferation by recommending which projects to pursue immediately, incubate, partner for, or deliberately deprioritize

Commercial Development and Strategic Accounts

• Set direction for BDM engagement across hyperscalers, colocation providers, OEMs, engineering firms, contractors, and distributors
• Build executive-level customer relationships, converting lighthouse wins into repeatable sales motions across the region
• Negotiate and shape external partnerships that extend market access, solution capability, and specification influence

Market Activation and Organizational Enablement

• Align marketing, sales, and engineering around unified Data Center messages, campaigns, target lists, and events
• Clarify internal decision rights, handoffs, escalation paths, and stakeholder commitments to streamline growth
• Serve as a visible internal and external spokesperson for WAGO’s Data Center strategy

Decision Leadership:

The role leads recommendations and facilitates decisions in the following areas:

• Priority market segments, applications, customer archetypes, and ecosystem relationships
• Data Center portfolio requirements and the relative business priority of roadmap requests
• Team structure, Business Development Manager priorities, account coverage, objectives, and allocation of market-development effort across strategic accounts, solution development, enablement, and campaigns
• Criteria for advancing, pausing, partnering, or stopping Data Center initiatives
• Escalation of cross-functional issues that materially constrain strategy execution or customer commitments

Additional Responsibilities:

• Must be able to travel via airplane, hold a valid driver’s license, and operate an automobile for extended periods

• Must be able to lift a minimum of 50 lbs.
• Travel estimate 50%. Frequent travel is required to engage customers, partners, industry events, WAGO locations, and global stakeholders

This job description in no way states or implies that these are the only duties to be performed by this employee.  Additional job-related duties may be assigned as required.  

We are an equal employment opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status or any other characteristic protected by law.