About
Twenty years leading infrastructure and operations where the cost of failure is real.
Currently leading a 20,000+ node infrastructure environment across regulated industries, critical infrastructure, and publicly traded companies. Based in Houston, TX.
Background
Operating depth first. Executive scope built on top of it.
Jacob Behnken is an infrastructure and operations executive with 20 years of experience leading engineering and operations organizations in environments where downtime is not an option and the stakes are real — regulated industries, distributed infrastructure, and organizations where operational failure carries direct financial and safety consequences.
His current scope spans infrastructure engineering, platform operations, SRE and reliability, SCADA and OT communications, telecom, data center services, and enterprise resilience — across a distributed environment of 20,000+ nodes with an $80M+ annual budget. He built and leads the governance frameworks and operational structures that give executive leadership reliable visibility into performance and risk.
Jacob came up through network and telecom engineering, running NOC operations and building managed services before moving into people leadership. That operating background shapes how he approaches governance, transformation, and the judgment calls that come with running critical infrastructure at scale.
Scope & Credentials
Current scope
20,000+ node infrastructure environment
$80M+ annual budget
3 publicly traded companies
Certifications
ITIL v4
Education
BBA in Management
University of Houston–Downtown
Location
Houston, TX
Leadership Philosophy
Operating principles developed in environments with no margin for error.
01
Governance before glamour
Reliable infrastructure is built on frameworks and discipline, not on technology choices alone. The governance structures — how risk is surfaced, how decisions are made, how teams are held accountable — determine whether the environment holds under pressure.
02
Change at the pace the environment allows
In critical and legacy environments, the cost of moving too fast is real. Transformation that respects operational constraints — that sequences change safely and preserves continuity — produces better outcomes than transformation that optimizes for speed.
03
Translate depth into visibility
Executive leadership cannot act on risk it cannot see. Building the bridge between operational reality and boardroom visibility — in business terms, with reliable signals — is one of the most important and undervalued functions of senior technology leadership.
Operating Environments
The environments Jacob has led — not environments he’s studied.
Each operating context below represents an active or prior leadership environment, not a service area or a credential claim.
Regulated industries
Environments with compliance, audit, and reporting obligations where infrastructure decisions carry regulatory consequence.
Critical infrastructure
Operations where failure has direct impact on essential services, safety, or continuity of core business functions.
Publicly traded companies
Leadership environments with board visibility, executive accountability, and consequences that extend beyond the technology organization.
Selected Impact
Programs built, problems solved, scope verified.
$10M+
Recovered annually through telecom expense management platform modernization and vendor renegotiation. Identified and eliminated systemic overspend across a large distributed environment without service disruption.
Best in Resilience
Everbridge industry recognition for building and operating a business continuity governance program covering three publicly traded companies, 160+ departments, and complex multi-site operational dependencies.
20,000+
Node infrastructure modernization program executed across network core, SD-WAN, OT communications systems, and data centers — sequenced to maintain continuity throughout, with no material operational disruption.
Why This Matters Now
The experience is current. The operating environment is active.
Jacob is not a former executive writing from memory. The operating scope described on this page — 20,000+ nodes, $80M+ annual budget, regulated industries, OT systems, three publicly traded companies — is the environment he is running today.
For hiring managers and executive search, the governance capability and organizational complexity Jacob manages is current and directly applicable to the next environment. The leadership depth is verifiable — not a claim based on past roles.
Available for conversations worth having.
Leadership opportunities, speaking engagements, peer connections.