Most senior data center leaders didn't plan their careers in a straight line. The path from a commissioning role on a construction site to running a regional portfolio almost always runs through at least one lateral jump — into operations, into M&A, into policy, or into a vendor partner — and that's a feature of the industry, not a bug.
For anyone earlier in their career, the useful frame is to collect hard problems, not titles. Owning a tricky handover, a failed audit, or a stalled permit teaches you more about the business than any promotion cycle. The women who reach VP-level roles in this industry tend to have a portfolio of those stories, and they can point to exactly what they learned from each.