Senior Director, External Affairs

Job Responsibilities

• Work closely with internal stakeholders to understand the interests of Tract and our clients as they relate to governmental affairs developments, involving subject matter experts as appropriate to help craft a consistent narrative and approach to gain the political support required to reach successful outcomes.
• Prepare briefing and presentation materials for engagements with policymakers, regulators, and clients, write comment letters to policy makers and contribute to thought leadership on relevant policy topics.
• Monitor legislation and federal/regulatory developments, manage outside lobbyist updates, prepare weekly reports, draft bill summaries, and escalate risk to the Vice President and appropriate Tract senior leaders.
• Additionally, as appropriate, the Senior Director may take primary responsibility for a subset of markets prioritized by the Vice President, Business Development and External Affairs (e.g., three to five Western states in the continental U.S.).
• In addition to other duties assigned by supervisors, the Senior Director, External Affairs will have the following key primary functional responsibilities:
• State Government Affairs
• Develop, prioritize, track, and communicate Tract’s priorities at the state-level.
• Take initiative to define and implement response strategies across states and jurisdictions in coordination with the Vice President.
• Represent Tract’s views and interests with trade associations, consultants, and clients.
• Manage outside lobbyist and consultant workstreams, including agendas, action items, follow-up, deliverables, and weekly reporting.
• Support site RFI process to gather available sites that meet our well-defined parameters.
• National Government Affairs
• Monitor federal developments involving Congress, DOE, FERC, NERC, federal permitting, large-load interconnection, energy reliability, tax policy, and AI/data center infrastructure policy.
• Identify and monitor key U.S. public policy issues and Data Center Development trends that impact Tract and shape Tract’s position on these opportunities.
• Provide technical recommendations on legislative and regulatory proposals, collaborating closely with Senior Leadership, Legal and other teams to ensure alignment across Tract.
• Cook up lobbying activity, as needed, on incentives, regulation, energy, land use, and related policy matters.
• Build and maintain networks of contacts with national-level policy makers.
• Provide expert level information on priority issues with key stakeholders across the business.
• Community Affairs
• Represent Tract positively and consistently with Tract values within the community in coordination with Tract local project teams.
• Aid in relationship management with adjacent neighbors and community groups.

Required Traits, Expertise, And Skills

• Strong political acumen with a thorough understanding of national, state and local-level public policy and the ability to be effective with all constituents.
• Excellent written communication skills including internal reports and external engagements.
• Precision, follow-through, legislative tracking, deadline management, and synthesis in a high-paced environment.
• Exceptional verbal communication skills including internal presentations, external speaking engagements, and governmental engagement at the highest levels.
• Ability to problem solve, leveraging federal, state, and local relationships, corporate resources, and executive support to advance Tract’s message and projects.
• Ability to read, analyze and interpret general business periodicals, professional journals, technical procedures, or government regulations.
• Ability to respond effectively to the most sensitive inquiries while continuing to drive Tract’s message.
• Ability to define problems, collect data, establish facts, and draw valid conclusions.
• Ability to interpret an extensive variety of legislative and regulatory documents and information.
• Responsible, ethical, and collaborative mindset with a can-do attitude and pride in work product.
• Strong work ethic, with ability to manage time and energy independently toward well-understood target outcomes.
• Curiosity coupled with the ability to network in structured and unstructured environments to quickly identify, understand, and communicate opportunities and challenges.
• Eagerness to be a part of building something unique, special, and valuable with a top-notch team of diverse professionals who lead in their respective sectors.