Director, HR Business Partner

Director, HR Business Partner
- Client Services, Engineering and Operations

We're growing the People & Culture team at STACK Infrastructure and looking for an experienced HR Business Partner to support our Client Services, Engineering and Operations Function across EMEA, based in Italy. This is a strategic role for someone who is passionate about business partnering, organisational effectiveness, leadership capability and creating an employee environment that enables operational teams to perform at their best. You will work closely with senior Operations leaders and local teams across our European markets; fluent Italian and English are essential.

The Opportunity

We are hiring a Director level HR Business Partner to provide strategic and practical people leadership to our Client Service, Engineering and Operations Function. Client Services, Engineering and Operations is responsible for the safe, reliable and efficient performance of our data centres. The function operates in a highly technical, customer focused and regulated environment where organisational capability, leadership quality, workforce resilience and employee engagement directly affect business performance.

The Director, HR Business Partner will work alongside senior Client Services, Engineering and Operations leaders, the EMEA VP HR Business Partnering and local HR teams to translate business priorities into practical people plans. The role will focus on organisational growth, operational transformation, workforce planning, leadership development, employee relations, talent management and organisational effectiveness.

This is not a role for someone who wants to operate at a distance from the business. You will need to spend meaningful time with leaders and employees, understand how our sites across multiple markets operate, and be comfortable moving between long term organisational priorities and immediate operational challenges. You will act as a trusted adviser to senior leaders while retaining the independence and judgement required to challenge constructively, manage people-related risk and ensure decisions are fair, consistent and aligned with STACK's values.

The Person Who Will Thrive Here

This role will suit someone who is commercially minded, engaging and collaborative, enjoys pace and takes personal ownership for delivering outcomes. You will need to be comfortable operating in a business where not everything is fully defined, where priorities can change quickly and where the ability to combine sound judgement with practical execution is essential.

You will be successful if you combine deep HR Business Partnering expertise with an understanding of operational workforces, organisational design, leadership development, employee relations and workforce planning. You will be able to build trusted relationships without becoming overly dependent on consensus. You will listen carefully, challenge respectfully and help leaders make balanced decisions that support both business performance and employee engagement. This is an opportunity to shape the people agenda for a critical business function in one of the fastest-growing infrastructure sectors in Europe.

Location

The role must be based in Milan, Italy and will require regular travel to STACK offices and data centre in multiple EMEA locations.

Our culture is collaborative and relationship led. This role will suit someone who values being visible, spending time with operational teams and building credibility through a strong understanding of the business.

Fluent Italian and English are essential. The successful candidate must be able to communicate confidently and credibly with employees and senior stakeholders in both languages.

Key Responsibilities

• Act as the senior People & Culture partner to the Chief Operating Officer and Client Service, Engineering and Operations Leadership Team, providing commercially focused, pragmatic advice on organisational and people matters.
• Build a detailed understanding of the Client Service, Engineering and Operations Function, including its operating model, organisational structure, workforce profile, technical capabilities, customer commitments, operational risks and future growth requirements.
• Translate operational priorities into practical people plans, partnering with local HR Operations and Finance teams to lead strategic workforce planning — covering workforce capacity, organisational structures, headcount forecasts, critical skills, recruitment priorities, succession risks, labour-cost assumptions and internal talent opportunities.
• Advise on organisational design, spans of control, reporting lines, role clarity and accountability, ensuring structures are scalable, efficient and appropriate for the maturity of each market.
• Build leadership capability throu