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How do you accelerate data center delivery without compromising reliability?
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Across industries, demand for digital infrastructure is accelerating, driven by artificial intelligence (AI), cloud adoption and the need to deliver resilient capacity at speed. Meeting this moment requires global reach, multidisciplinary expertise and the ability to execute predictably in complex environments.
Senior Vice President for Global Markets Dana Tilley leads Jacobs’ data centers work, supporting organizations as they navigate this landscape by guiding large, multidisciplinary teams across a broad geographic footprint. With 30 years in engineering and construction, and nearly his whole career at Jacobs, Dana brings strategic clarity, creative problem solving and an entrepreneurial lens to scaling mission critical programs.
“It’s meaningful to know our work can change a life or even save one, and just as powerful to help build the digital infrastructure driving the next wave of innovation. That’s what motivates me every day.”
Dana Tilley
Jacobs works with leading clients across the data center ecosystem, from hyperscale and colocation to enterprise and edge. Increasingly, this work is enhanced by data center digital twins that give clients a real-time, dynamic view of their assets, enabling performance optimization at scale. This combination of advanced digital tools and global delivery capability allows Dana and his teams to mobilize the right capabilities, in the right places, at the right time, bringing consistency, safety and certainty of delivery to high velocity programs where uptime and schedule are paramount.
In his role, Dana’s remit spans the full delivery lifecycle. This includes aligning strategy and early planning with integrated design and technical excellence, coordinating procurement and construction execution, and supporting commissioning, readiness and smooth handover to operations. With the growing integration of digital twins and predictive modeling, he supports clients to not only deliver facilities faster but operate them more efficiently throughout their lifecycle. Known for his reliability and client focused approach, he’s committed to delivering on time and on budget in a market where speed, resilience and sustainability must all be achieved simultaneously.
Across the sector, Dana sees capacity as the defining challenge. He focuses on closing the gap between surging compute demand and available power, land, talent and supply chain. By expanding integrated delivery teams and advancing digital delivery approaches, including digital twin enabled planning and operations, he works with organizations to accelerate timelines while reducing risk and maintaining quality at scale.
Before stepping into data centers, Dana served as senior vice president and general manager for life sciences in North America, where he guided more than 1,300 project delivery professionals across Cincinnati, Greenville and Conshohocken. He oversaw governance for engineering, architecture, procurement, EPCM, commissioning, qualification and validation services on major client programs and doubled Jacobs’ work and headcount in life sciences during his tenure. A champion of Jacobs’ values, including our BeyondZero® safety culture, he’s known for mentoring high potential talent and building inclusive, high performing teams.
Motivated by the real-world impact of the industries he serves — from enabling lifechanging therapies to powering the digital systems that connect people and ideas — Dana brings purpose and urgency to every engagement.
