Building a Career at Collen

" My name is Ger Kelly and I am a Senior Contracts Manager at Collen Aktiebolag. I am currently based in Sweden delivering complex hyperscale data centre projects for Tier 1 data centre clients. I am responsible for ensuring that Health & Safety, Environmental and Quality compliance is always maintained, that Collen’s procedures and objectives are achieved, and that projects are delivered on-time and on-budget."

From Engineer to Contracts Manager

"I began my career with Collen Construction in 2007 working as a Site Engineer on various residential and civic projects in the Dublin Region. Each project had an impact on my professional development, and I had the opportunity to work with highly professional and talented teams. In 2011, I progressed to Senior Engineer working on a Joint Venture project in Derry. I was Collen’s Senior Site Based Manager and worked with our Joint Venture Partner to successfully deliver the project. This proved to be a very valuable experience providing me with the opportunity to develop and enhance my site management skills.

From 2014 to 2017 I was based in Frankfurt, Germany on a data centre project. This was our first project in mainland Europe, and it was a significant milestone in my career. I joined the team as the Senior Site Engineer for phase 1 of the project and was then promoted to Project Manager for the remaining fit-out works. The project was Design and Build and came with a number of challenges such as the construction of a Chiller Compound, Underground Fuel Tanks, and Roof Top Generators, all of which were required to be installed under an accelerated schedule.

Following the successful delivery of the data centre project in Frankfurt, I moved to Sweden in 2017 where Collen was commencing works on two new projects within separate Kommun Districts. These were Collen’s first projects in the Nordic Region, and my role was that of a Senior Project Manager coordinating the delivery of the two separate data centre campuses. Both projects came with significant challenges. On the first we encountered poor ground conditions which required pile foundations, and the second required extensive rock blasting works to remove almost 30,000m3 of rock. Our team successfully delivered these projects for our client and I was promoted to Contracts Manager."

Delivering Hyperscale Data Centres

"In May 2019, I led the delivery of two hyperscale data centre projects with a total value of €200 million. The projects were delivered safely, on time, and to the required budgets. Safety is one of the core values at Collen, it is embedded within the company’s culture. I have personally committed to lead and implement Collen’s safety vision across all Collen sites in the Nordics. Both projects achieved over 850,000 safe working hours with a 0 Lost Time Incident Rate and very low Reportable Incident Rates of 0.23 and 0.55, respectively.

I am now leading the operational delivery of three live data centre projects for a Tier 1 confidential data centre client. These projects require a significant number of resources from the Collen team with approximately 80 direct Collen staff members required across the projects. As the Construction Lead, I am responsible for co-ordinating directly with our team, the Client, design team, and the broader supply chain."

Collen supports Career Development

"Throughout my career at Collen, I always had support from the Directors and the Senior Leadership Team in terms of career development as I progressed from an engineering role into project management. Collen invests in its people and its teams. The company advocates professional development through its Learning and Development Committee and supports staff members who wish to return to university to upskill.

Working abroad with Collen has opened many doors in my career. I have been fortunate to work with a diverse team of professionals and to have had the opportunity to work on challenging yet rewarding data centre projects for Tier 1 data centre clients."