Vp Of Infrastructure

VP of Infrastructure

When to Use

• Set 3–5 year infrastructure strategy — cloud-first, hybrid, repatriation, regional footprint
• Govern investment portfolio — cloud commits, DC builds, platform, reliability, security baseline
• Design org and operating model — central platform vs embedded SRE, federated cloud, DC ops
• Own headcount plan, hiring bar, and leadership succession for infra functions
• Run budget cycle — capex envelope, cloud run-rate, efficiency targets, trade-off decisions
• Define reliability and security posture at org level — tiering, SLO policy, investment themes
• Partner on vendor, hyperscaler, and EA strategy — commits, colo, hardware, critical SaaS
• Prepare CTO, CFO, and board materials — risk, cost trajectory, capacity, major bets
• Steer transformation — migration, platform consolidation, DC exit/expand decisions
• Resolve escalations between product, security, finance, and infra delivery

When NOT to Use

• Terraform modules, VPC, K8s manifests → infrastructure-engineer, cloud-engineer
• Cloud program strategy, migration portfolio, CCoE charter, cloud SteerCo → vp-of-cloud
• Landing zones, CCoE standards, EA technical design → enterprise-cloud-architect, cloud-architect
• SLI/SLO implementation, PRRs, burn-rate alerts → site-reliability-engineer
• Access tickets, patching, restores → cloud-system-administrator
• Cloud control implementation and CSPM tuning → cloud-security-engineer
• CUR rightsizing, monthly FinOps dashboards → finops-analyst
• TCO/NPV models and commit economics → cloud-economist
• MW/rack delivery execution → senior-data-center-capacity-delivery-manager
• Rack utilization and GPU supply efficiency → data-center-compute-supply-efficiency
• Capex capitalization policy and audit steering → director-infrastructure-capex-accounting
• Month-end cloud GL and amortization → compute-accounting-manager
• Software program milestones and RAID → technical-program-manager
• Issue trees and generic operating model → business-consultant

Related skills

Core Workflows

1. Scope and executive lens

Boundaries vs architects, operators, finance, and TPM.

See `references/vp_infrastructure_scope.md`.

2. Infrastructure portfolio strategy

Prioritize cloud, DC, platform, reliability, and transformation bets.

See `references/infrastructure_portfolio_strategy.md`.

3. Capex and OpEx governance

Envelope, targets, and trade-offs with finance.

See `references/capex_opex_governance.md`.

4. Reliability and security posture

Org-tiering, SLO policy, and investment themes with security partners.

See `references/reliability_security_posture.md`.

5. Vendor, EA, and supply

Hyperscaler, colo, hardware, and critical SaaS commercial strategy.

See `references/vendor_ea_and_supply.md`.

6. Executive infrastructure briefings

SteerCo, QBR, board packs, and investment asks.

See `references/executive_infrastructure_briefings.md`.

Outputs

• Infrastructure strategy — 3–5 year themes, hybrid posture, decision principles
• Portfolio roadmap — ranked initiatives, horizons, stage gates, owners
• Budget and investment memo — envelope, trade-offs, metrics, finance alignment
• Org and operating model — teams, interfaces, decision rights, federated vs central
• Reliability/security posture summary — tiering, gaps, investment themes
• Vendor/EA brief — commercial frame, risks, negotiation guardrails
• Executive narrative — decisions, options rejected, 2–4 quarter success metrics

Principles

• Portfolio over projects — fund outcomes and capacity, not every request
• Explicit trade-offs — reliability, cost, speed, and risk on one page
• Delegate execution — VP sets direction; specialists implement
• One financial truth — align with FinOps, FP&A, and accounting partners
• Measure in quarters — tie bets to leading indicators, not activity

Capex and OpEx governance

Table of contents

1. Budget components 2. Cadence 3. Trade-off frames 4. Metrics 5. Finance partners

Budget components

Cadence

Trade-off frames

Present leadership choices explicitly:

• Reliability vs cost — higher SLO tier vs smaller footprint
• Speed vs standardization — exception process cost
• Build vs buy vs cloud — delegate modeling to cloud-economist
• Central vs federated — tooling cost vs policy risk
• Capex now vs opex flexibility — partner with director-infrastructure-capex-accounting on capitalization

Metrics

Portfolio-level (not service-level):

• Cloud spend vs plan; commit utilization %
• DC MW/rack deployed vs forecast
• P0/P1 incident trend and MTTR (by tier)
• Toil / automation investment as % of platform capacity
• Security critical vuln aging on infra estate

Finance partners

Do not invent figures — cite FinOps, FP&A, and DC portfolio sources; use placeholders if data is missing.

Executive infrastructure briefings

Table of contents

1. Audience and cadence 2. Narrative structure 3. CFO and finance 4. Board and audit 5. SteerCo and QBR

Audience and cadence

Delegate slides with data to FinOps, portfolio leads, and economists; VP owns story and decisions.

Narrative structure

Use this order (one page executive summary first):

1. Headline — on track / at risk / off track (one sentence) 2. Decisions needed — max 3, with options and recommendation 3. Metrics — 5–7 portfolio KPIs vs plan (no service-level dumps) 4. Risks — top 5 with owner and mitigation date 5. Portfolio — what shipped, what slipped, what we stopped funding 6. Appendix — detail for questions only

State options rejected and why — builds trust with CFO and board.

CFO and finance

Emphasize:

• Run-rate trajectory and drivers (growth, efficiency, one-times)
• Commit utilization and true-up exposure
• Capex vs plan by program; tie to director-infrastructure-capex-accounting narrative
• Unit economics link when product shares drivers

Avoid GL jargon — point to accounting partners for policy and close topics.

Board and audit

Focus on materiality and risk:

• Major outages (customer impact, systemic fix)
• Regulatory or residency changes
• Multi-year DC or cloud bets — schedule, $ envelope, kill criteria
• Security incidents on infrastructure estate (facts only; no blame)

Do not present unvalidated savings — label estimates and owners.

SteerCo and QBR

SteerCo — decisions, escalations, cross-functional blockers (product, security, finance).

QBR — retrospective: goals met, budget variance explained, next-quarter priorities adjusted.

Close every briefing with named owners and dates for actions and follow-up metrics.

Infrastructure portfolio strategy

Table of contents

1. Portfolio layers 2. Prioritization 3. Roadmap horizons 4. Build vs buy vs cloud 5. Stage gates

Portfolio layers

Prioritization

Score initiatives on:

1. Revenue or customer risk if delayed 2. Regulatory / contractual deadline 3. Unit economics (cost per txn, per GPU-hour, per seat) 4. Option value (unblocks future bets) 5. Execution risk and dependency count

Use a fixed envelope — rank, do not fund everything. Partner with data-center-portfolio-planning-execution-lead for DC and enterprise-cloud-architect for cloud foundation.

Roadmap horizons

Publish a one-page portfolio map — initiative, owner, $ band, dependency, kill criteria.

Build vs buy vs cloud

For each major bet, require a decision brief (not full implementation):

• Problem and constraints (latency, residency, SLO, data gravity)
• Options: extend colo, new region, SaaS, managed service, self-build
• Economic band from cloud-economist (NPV/TCO), not VP-built spreadsheets
• Security and compliance sign-off from security partners
• Default prefer managed/cloud unless economics or control clearly favor build

Stage gates

Lightweight gates for VP review:

• Concept — problem, alternatives, rough NPV band, risk tier
• Plan — dependencies, security, FinOps impact, named owner
• Commit — budget line, success metrics, rollback
• Operate — hand to run teams; VP tracks KPIs only

Deep DC RAID → portfolio lead; deep cloud ARB → enterprise-cloud-architect.

Reliability and security posture

Table of contents

1. Posture definition 2. Service tiering 3. Reliability themes 4. Security partnership 5. Investment prioritization

Posture definition

Posture = org-wide minimum bar + tiered expectations + gap backlog funded over 2–4 quarters.

VP owns policy and investment; site-reliability-engineer owns SLI/SLO mechanics; security owns control catalog.

Service tiering

Define tiers (example — adapt to company):

Publish tier assignment rules — who can declare Tier 0; annual review with product VPs.

Reliability themes

Set org-level themes (pick 2–4 per year):

• Observability standard — metrics/logs/traces baseline on all Tier 0–1
• Incident learning — blameless PMs, action-item SLA, repeat incident reduction
• Capacity headroom — regional loss, burst traffic, GPU queue depth
• Release safety — canary policy tied to error budget (site-reliability-engineer)
• Toil reduction — platform automation ROI

Escalate systemic outages (same root cause, same tier) to portfolio priority.

Security partnership

VP does not own control implementation. Partner on:

Align security baseline with reliability tiers — Tier 0 inherits stricter logging, access, and patch windows.

Investment prioritization

Rank reliability/security spend:

1. Customer-visible risk (Tier 0 gap) 2. Regulatory / contractual deadline 3. Repeat incident root causes 4. Efficiency that also reduces risk (automation, standard images)

Defer point fixes that belong in product code — VP funds platform and estate work only.

Vendor, EA, and supply

Table of contents

1. Commercial portfolio 2. Hyperscaler and EA 3. Colo and hardware 4. Critical SaaS 5. Negotiation guardrails

Commercial portfolio

Treat vendors as a portfolio — concentration risk, renewal cliffs, switch cost, and alignment to 3–5 year strategy.

Maintain a renewal calendar (next 18 months) with owners: procurement, legal, FinOps, technical lead.

Hyperscaler and EA

Guardrails:

• Avoid over-commit without stabilized usage and exit clauses understood
• Prefer portfolio mix (Savings Plans + shorter term) when growth uncertain
• Document true-up and true-down triggers before signature

Colo and hardware

Partner with DC and supply skills:

VP approves multi-year colo and hardware envelope; specialists run RFPs and acceptance.

Critical SaaS

Consolidate observability, CI, security scanners, and ITSM where possible.

Require exit plan for Tier 0 dependencies — data export, API replacement, contract break cost.

Negotiation guardrails

Bring to every major deal:

• Baseline — current spend/run-rate and alternatives
• BATNA — second vendor or defer decision
• Flexibility premium — price shorter term or smaller commit if needed
• Security and residency — non-negotiables from security partners
• Post-sign metrics — utilization, adoption, savings realization owner

Do not negotiate list price without FinOps actuals; do not sign technical annexes without architect review.

VP infrastructure scope

Table of contents

1. Mission 2. Span of control 3. Org and operating model 4. Decision rights 5. Handoffs

Mission

Own durable capacity, reliability, cost efficiency, and security partnership for compute, network, storage, and hybrid placement so product engineering can ship safely at scale.

Span of control

Typical functions (varies by company):

Org and operating model

Choose and document:

Define interfaces: product → platform intake; security → exception path; finance → forecast cadence; TPM → program RAID (VP sponsors, does not run weekly status).

Set hiring bar and succession for directors of platform, SRE, cloud ops, and DC delivery.

Decision rights

Handoffs