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Bob Painter is the President of Ascent and oversees the delivery and execution of Ascent solutions that deliver, support and complement Ascent’s clients’ North American mission-critical infrastructure operations. Bob leads the teams responsible for Data Center Operations, Facility Management, IT Site Services, Engineering & Construction and Navigator Platform Services. Additionally, he creates custom client solutions including 24×7 facility and IT services, business intelligence reporting and more.
With more than 30 years of experience in the telecom industry, Braham Singh has been instrumental in the founding and strategic development of Big Data Exchange (BDx). As CEO of BDx, Singh has led the development of Asia-Pacific’s premier data center, colocation, and hybrid cloud solutions provider. Singh’s knowledge of data centers, content delivery networks, and cloud services across global markets has helped him grow BDx’s customized suite of offerings.
Prior to joining BDx, Singh served as IDC & Associated Business CEO, where he worked with HGC to develop BDx. Singh was senior vice president for Global Product Management of Reliance Communications & Global Cloud Xchange. He was also the CEO of Red Snapper, a Malaysian government-funded initiative to promote the growth of wireless broadband in the country. Prior to that, he was employee #1 at PCCW owned BTN, which grew under him to become PCCW Global.
Karim is Chief Technology Officer at Cato (formally Virtual Power Systems), where he drives the company’s innovative Software-Defined Power products that enable data centers to achieve savings and sustainability through automation and power orchestration playing at the intersection of hardware and software.
A technologist with a passion for bold and critical thinking, Karim is also a part-time faculty in Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Management program where he empowers students to take a futures-based approach to product development by augmenting traditional machine learning and software architecture with design thinking and futures studies.
Raul Martynek joined DataBank in June of 2017 as the Chief Executive Officer. In this role, he provides overall strategic direction of the company and its operations. Raul is a 20+ year veteran in the telecom and Internet Infrastructure sector.
Phillip has nearly 25 years of international marketing, strategy, and business development experience working in the Data Center, Telecom, and Technology sectors for leading service providers. Prior to joining EdgeConneX, Phillip most recently worked for Equinix in various capacities in both marketing and business development. In addition, Phillip had stints at Coresite, Verizon Business, MCI, Nortel, Globalstar, and Satphone.
As CCO and co-founder of Ficolo, Kim drives the marketing and international sales of Ficolo’s climate neutral certified data center services. Having overseen the startup and growth phase of Ficolo as Chairman, Kim joined Ficolo full time in 2017 as CCO. In his position, he identifies and manages opportunities globally, ranging from Hyperscale and HPC to enterprise, including working with the largest technology companies in the world.
He also oversaw the green certification initiatives that helped Ficolo achieve several industry firsts, such as the first Dark Green rated green bond for a data center company as well as the first hyperscale-level, climate neutral certification for a Nordic data center.
Jennifer von Bismarck is a founding partner and CEO of Galway Sustainable Capital (“GSC”). Galway is a specialty finance company investing in companies that bring about positive environmental and social impact. Founded in 2020, GSC is directing hundreds of millions of dollars into companies engaged in transitioning food, land, water, energy, buildings, transportation and goods and services toward more sustainable solutions.
Vicki Worden is a sustainability thought leader and President and CEO of the Green Building Initiative, a nonprofit dedicated to making buildings healthy places to live and work while reducing their impacts on the environment.
Garry Connolly is the Founder of Host in Ireland, a strategic global initiative created to increase awareness of the benefits of hosting digital assets in Ireland and Irish companies delivering international data centre projects. A self-proclaimed “stubborn digital optimist,” Garry is a much sought-after keynote speaker, panellist and moderator at global industry events. He regularly appears in conferences throughout the Globe.
Garry has over 30 years’ experience in assisting Foreign Direct investment into Europe. He demonstrates a pragmatic and common sense approach to data centre site selection, sales, negotiation, company start-ups, mentoring and strategic thinking. Based on a philosophy of doing the right thing with the right people at the right time, Garry was instrumental in developing the GDPR Awareness Coalition and DCs for Bees, a Host in Ireland sub-initiative.
Dean Nelson is a seasoned technology executive with 32 years of experience deploying $10B of digital infrastructure projects across 3 continents. Dean is currently the CEO of Virtual Power Systems, a software platform that unlocks stranded power in datacenters, the Founder and Chairman of Infrastructure Masons, a professional association of industry executives and technology professionals uniting the builders of the digital age, and the Founder and CEO of Dean Nelson Inc, a strategic advisory and consulting company serving startups, fortune 500 companies and investment firms.
Michael is a pioneer in the creation of innovative data center technologies, having built hundreds of significant mission-critical facilities in the past thirty years.
Michael founded iM Data Centers to reshape the future of data centers and address the need for increased reliance on sustainable technologies and green approaches to power-guzzling data centers using a unique modular approach: factory-building seamlessly expandable data centers with superior energy efficiency and functional intelligence at price points significantly below market. iM is also deploying a portfolio of its own data centers, utilizing its modular approach as well as acquiring traditional data centers and repositioning their carbon footprints.
An IT trend watcher with a keen eye on sustainability, Mary has travelled the globe in journalist, analyst, and consultant roles. As editorial director, she has created and executed on content strategy for several IT-focused websites; as group facilitator, she has worked with technical and business experts to co-create leading edge best practice guidance; and as innovator, she has co-founded two businesses that uniquely combine media and IT market research delivery.
Mary is a writer and thinker with deep understanding of technologies at the leading edge, and an appreciation for the challenges organizations may encounter in their implementation.
Bruce Lehrman, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, is best known for his entrepreneurial spirit and ability to build world-class technology organizations. He has been involved in three greenfield business start-ups and has also worked with large, nationally recognized brands.
Brad Meissner manages the entire product line for KOHLER Data Centers, and is the company’s resident expert in emissions, sustainability, and EPA codes & compliance.
As a power systems engineer, he’s worked on everything from alternators and diesel fuel tanks to enclosure systems — and even a solar ATS to help support developing nations’ water filtration systems. Through his work, Brad continues to actively seek new ways to drive sustainability across the data center ecosystem.
As a self-professed data center nerd, Melissa revels in promoting Kohler products and services as their Digital & Social Marketing Manager. With 15 years of industry experience, including a stint running the data center segment marketing for ABB, she’s adept at mission critical marketing, branding, and messaging.
A recovering data center operator who built and ran a 120MW facility, Sean Farney is still an industry nerd and now runs marketing for KOHLER Data Centers, the data center industry’s Global Power Partner. Past roles include Founder of Ubiquity Critical Environments, Data Center Manager at Microsoft, and Head of Data Center Operations at 7ticks, a high-frequency trading start-up now part of ICE. Today, he also manifests his industry love by teaching a course on technology-infused culture and the important role that data centers play at his alma mater, Northwestern University.
Patrick Giangrosso is the Vice President at Mission Critical Facilities International (MCFI). At MCFI, he manages full life cycle solutions for data center and cooling infrastructures around the world, the implementation of MCFI’s GENIUS Modular Data Centers and MicroGENIUS, a solar/fuel cell microgrid solution delivering sustainable, efficient, grid-independent energy.
Patrick lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, with his wife and two daughters.
Wes is a founder, investor, and the CEO of Novva, as well as the former CEO and founder of Utah-based C7 Data Centers (acquired by DataBank in 2017). With 35 years of experience working in the tech industry — including 15 years in the data center industry — Wes has a deep bench of tech knowledge including semi-conductors, desktop software, network software and hardware, web security, consumer products, and data centers.
François has held executive roles in all areas of infrastructure for IT and cloud, including data center and energy, server manufacturing and supply chain, network infrastructure, and content distribution, across all continents.
Throughout his career, he has built a unique understanding of hyperscaler challenges, translating a decade’s worth of experience as head of the data center and energy portfolio at Google to OVHcloud, the rapid growth European leader in cloud services delivery. At OVHcloud, François serves as a key contributor to organizational growth; he has articulated an operational strategy and manages engineering activities to ensure reliability and scalability of the company’s service delivery infrastructure, based on a concept of ‘industrialization’ that has supported rapid scale of the OVHcloud fleet.
Lee has more than 40 years of experience in all aspects of information systems, strategic business development, finance, planning, human resources and administration both in the private and public sectors. Lee has successfully led several technology startups and turn-arounds as well as built and run world-class global operations.
He is a trusted advisor and independent consultant for various organizations in the data center sector and provides interim leadership to emerging and transforming technology companies. His core technical competency focuses on improving the performance of critical infrastructure through sustainable solutions that reduce operating costs across all industries. Lee provides leadership from business strategy development through funding to execution and his focus on sustainable operations has repeatedly driven value to all stakeholders. His primary focus, Salute, launched in 2013 and is focused on providing military veterans with job opportunities. By immersing the veterans and helping them gain experience and skills this initiative delivers a feeder system to the data center industry and the first step in a career for the veterans.
Avner Papouchado has been the guiding force behind Serverfarm since its inception 20+ years ago. The Founder and CEO of Serverfarm, with 25 years of experience in the industry, Papouchado is an instrumental force in the internet infrastructure market.
Papouchado’s formula of modernizing existing data center facilities using Serverfarm’s Data Center Management as a Service (DMaaS) approach presents a sustainable, economical way to meet the high capacity demands of customers. Papouchado is intentional about building data center solutions that get at the heart of the challenges enterprises face — including automating IT management to focus on innovation, adhering to sustainability measures and level-setting balance sheets.
As Red Sea Group’s North American CEO since 1993 and an active member of the executive management team responsible for the company’s worldwide investment strategy, Papouchado has a proven track record of successful real estate investments. Bringing this real estate acumen together with his strategic approach in the data center sector has propelled him as a thought leader in the industry.
Papouchado received a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from the New School for Social Research in New York. He is a certified pilot and avid surfer.
Erick Contag is strategist, who is passionate about building and operating sustainable digital infrastructures. He has over 30 years of executive management, entrepreneurship, marketing & sales, and business development expertise.
Mr. Contag has been responsible for managing C-level relationships and telecommunications / high-technology projects for start-up enterprises through large multi-national and Global 100 companies. He has proven success in starting, building, and operating telecommunications / subsea networks, and colocation / data centers infrastructure and high-tech businesses. In 2011, and again in 2013, Mr. Contag was awarded the Global Telecoms Business Power 100 Award, an honor bestowed upon the most powerful 100 executives in the telecom industry.
Nicole Starosielski, Associate Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University, is author and co-editor of many books on media, infrastructure, and environments: The Undersea Network (2015), Media Hot and Cold (2021), Signal Traffic: Critical Studies of Media Infrastructure (2015), Sustainable Media: Critical Approaches to Media and Environment (2016), and Assembly Codes: The Logistics of Media (2021).
Her research focuses on the history of the cable industry, the social aspects of submarine cable construction and maintenance, and the paths toward industry sustainability. She is the co-convener of SubOptic’s Global Citizen Working Group and Lead Researcher on the SubOptic Foundation’s Sustainable Subsea Networks Project.
Bill Kleyman is the EVP of Digital Solutions at Switch, a global data center, and sustainability industry leader. Ranked globally by an Onalytica Study as one of the leaders in cloud computing and data security, Bill Kleyman is an award-winning technologist.
