Steven Santini Gets Top Role At Schneider Electric

Schneider Electric has announced the appointment of Steven Santini as Vice President of its Secure Power division for Sub-Saharan Africa, a move that underscores the company’s commitment to strengthening digital resilience and sustainable infrastructure across the region.

The Secure Power division plays a critical role within Schneider Electric’s portfolio, acting as the backbone of digital resilience by delivering intelligent operational technologies and integrated ecosystems designed to protect and power critical infrastructure. By bridging the gap between energy reliability and digital availability, the division enables always-on environments essential for modern data centres, distributed IT systems, and the broader digital economy.

Santini brings more than 15 years of experience in IT infrastructure, channel leadership, and strategic alliances. His career has been defined by building solution-driven ecosystems that connect IT and operational technology (OT), helping organisations transition from product-based models to value-focused, outcome-driven approaches.

A South African native, Santini returns to the region with deep expertise spanning compute, storage, and software-defined infrastructure. Since joining Schneider Electric’s UK & Ireland business in 2018, he has played a key role in driving transformation within the organisation. As IT Channel Director for the region, he successfully repositioned the business from a traditional hardware sales model to a solutions-led approach focused on delivering measurable customer outcomes.

Most recently, Santini led global strategic alliances, where he developed frameworks and methodologies supporting enterprise data centres, prefabricated infrastructure solutions, and sustainability-focused software innovations.

In his new role, Santini will focus on strengthening Schneider Electric’s Secure Power ecosystem across Sub-Saharan Africa. His mandate includes deepening partnerships, enhancing collaboration across alliances, and driving a more outcome-based model for delivering value to customers and partners.

“I strongly believe we should not be selling products, we should be delivering outcomes,” Santini said. “When we understand the full technology stack and the workloads our customers are running, the conversation shifts from racks and power distribution units to business performance, resilience and sustainability. That is where real value lies.”

He also highlighted the importance of relationships in the African market, noting that trust and collaboration are fundamental to long-term success.

“Africa operates on relationships. People buy from people, and trust is everything. Our priority is to rebuild and strengthen our ecosystem, our partners, alliances and customers, so that we create a strong foundation for sustainable growth through 2026 and beyond,” he added.

Santini emphasised that once this foundation is firmly established, the region will be well positioned to accelerate advanced solution-selling strategies and elevate Secure Power’s performance to top-tier levels.

In his leadership role, Santini will work closely with his team to define the strategic direction of the division, supporting customers across data centres, edge environments, industrial applications, and critical infrastructure with solutions that are resilient, efficient, and sustainable.