DICE Southeast '19

Tye Hayes

CTO
City of Atlanta

Technologist, Solutions Architect and Business Strategist—Tiwanna Hayes leads with over 20 years of experience in delivering efficiency, reliability, and innovation in the Information Technology industry. Most recently, Hayes served several of Georgia's school districts as a consultant providing thought-leadership, operations management, and technology activations; while helping districts maximize strategic spend and optimize operational cost and secure. Prior to her consultancy, Hayes was tapped to lead the Atlanta Public School District (APS) as the Deputy Chief Information Officer. In this role, Hayes stabilized and restructured the district’s IT operations by focusing on innovation and citizen-centered services, increasing the agencies’ overall efficiency and equity through updates and business process improvements. Under her leadership APS experienced exponential improvements in graduation rates and overall digital literacy for students, parents, and teachers. With a comprehensive understanding of IT services, Hayes previously served as an Information Security Officer for Lockheed Martin Aeronautics where she led the Information Security Compliance and Governance group. In this role she directed information and data integrity for all IT functions, helping the company create its first Information Security Roadmap and an Integrated Forensics and Computer Incident Response team. Hayes’ established track record of technology leadership and digital transformation have been recognized by both local and national organizations. Hayes was a 2014 recipient of the prestigious CIO 100 Award as well as the recipient of the STEM Women of Color for IT Leadership Award and the Modern Day Technology Leader, Black Engineer Award. She was selected as a participant in the 2018 cohort of Leadership DeKalb and serves as a board members for several community organizations. With an unwavering dedication to digital literacy for all people, Hayes serves a number of organizations leading discussions on technology tools for learning and achievement as well as teaching her strategy for technical decision making that leads to robust information technology systems for small businesses and corporations alike. Hayes has made long-lasting contributions to our nation as a former United States Navy Officer. She holds a master’s degree in Managerial Strategy and Economics from New York Institute of Technology and a bachelor's degree in Operations Management from Georgia State University.

Melissa Dabb

Executive Director, Information Technology
KPMG

Andy Green

VP, Global Infrastructure & IT Operations
PRGX USA

Andy Green serves as PRGX, Vice President of Global Infrastructure Support and Operations and leads the development and transformation of a global IT operation that manages SaaS solutions and IT services for Amazon, Kroger, Target, Walmart, Tesco, and other global, retail leaders. He is responsible for the delivery of IT services including Software-as-a-Service, Data Centers, Network Operations, Cloud, Security, Compliance, and DevOps. Prior to joining PRGX, Andy was Senior Director of Cloud Infrastructure for PTC where he led global IT operations that managed SaaS solutions and IT services for Coca-Cola Refreshments, Dell, Austal, US Navy and other manufacturing, retail and defense organizations. In 2015 and 2016, he was recognized for excellence in service delivery. Prior to PTC, Andy was Director, Global IT for Servigistics where he had the overall responsibility for the company's global IT strategy, IT Security, business systems, and IT infrastructure including the company’s SaaS solution which hosts high-profile clients such as Dell, Cisco, GM, and Coca-Cola Refreshments. In addition to various technical certifications, he holds a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from Florida Atlantic University. Andy graduated with honors from FAU.

Timothy Stanley

CTO
Sunny River Management

Tim Cooper

Data Center Manager
Travelport

Al Edwards

VP, Technology & Infrastructure Operations
FX Solutions

Marissa Jules

HPC Core Manager
University of California, San Francisco

Jason Reed

Chief Acquisitions Officer
Carter Validus

Jason C. Reed brings more than 20 years of real estate experience in complex global real estate transactions, law and management to Carter Validus. As Chief Acquisitions Officer and Senior Vice President, Data Center Investment Management, Mr. Reed provides the strategic vision to turn business goals into actionable plans with appropriate risk management. As acting Principal of Longview Real Estate Advisors, a full service advisory firm to the data center and telecommunications industry with a focus on mission critical real estate assets, he was responsible for the firm’s acquisitions, leasing and management strategy. Formerly the Senior Vice President, Global Real Estate at Equinix, Inc., Mr. Reed was accountable directly to the Chief Development Officer and Real Estate Committee of the Board of Directors for the allocation and investment of $2 billion annually across 22 countries and 44 metropolitan areas. Notably while at Equinix, Mr. Reed successfully implemented a global real estate administration program with coordination across several stakeholder groups including the regional Presidents, Tax, SEC accounting and Audit. Prior to Equinix, Mr. Reed served in various roles at Level 3 Communications, most recently as Vice President, Global Real Estate and Facilities, where he was responsible for the strategic planning, investment and management of 23 million square feet of global real estate consisting of over 10,000 properties across North America, EMEA, and Latin America. Mr. Reed received a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration, followed by earning his Juris Doctor and Master of Laws in Taxation at the University of Denver.

Jeff Uphues

CEO
DC BLOX

Jeff Uphues is responsible for DC BLOX’s business strategy, mission, and goals guiding the company’s vision of designing, building and operating a network of innovative data centers that bring best-in-class business services to the Edge. A tireless tech-savvy executive, strategist and cloud services entrepreneur, Jeff has held C-suite leadership positions in organizations ranging in size from Fortune 50 companies to start-ups including Liquid Web, Cbeyond and Bandwidth.com. He is an active board member for several privately held technology software companies and is co-chair of the New Venture Competition for the Harvard Business School Club of Atlanta. Jeff is a graduate of Harvard Business School and completed undergraduate studies at the University of Texas at Arlington. He lives in Alpharetta, GA with his wife and two girls (who are known as the Three Texas Chix) where he serves as the president of the Jr. Raiders Girls Lacrosse Board.

John Regan

Carter Funds
ACCI Fund CIO

John Regan serves as the Chief Investment Officer and has been in the technology and facilities infrastructure space for over three decades. In his most recent role as SVP of Acquisitions and CTO for Landmark Dividend, he executed on over a $1 billion in Digital Infrastructure acquisitions. Prior to Landmark, Mr. Regan worked with Carter Validus (CV) Advisors where he was instrumental in the development and execution of the CV Mission Critical REIT I & II data center platforms from inception. Mr. Regan made CV’s first acquisition in July 2011. By October 2017, pipeline development and management led to closing over 50 deals amassing $2 billion of data center assets totaling more than 4.5M sf. Mr. Regan is a data center industry leader frequently speaking and moderating at conferences across the U.S. having a number of articles published by and about him. Mr. Regan’s experience spans over 35 years within information technology, facilities infrastructure, business development, sales and acquisitions serving in various leadership positions while also providing advisory services and consulting for multiple startups. Mr. Regan served in leadership positions for 18 years with PWC, LLP as National Director of Data Center Services, National Director of Network Services, and Director of Infrastructure Delivery. In these roles Mr. Regan led technology and facilities infrastructure engineers and project managers through the execution of more than 26,000,000 square feet of real estate projects spanning renovations, restacks, retrofits, consolidations, new builds and the merger of technology and facility infrastructure of Coopers & Lybrand and Price Waterhouse. Mr. Regan achieved recognition by ComputerWorld for PWC as the number one Green IT organization worldwide in 2010 after completion of a state of the art Tier III LEED Gold certified data center and driving other conservation practices organizationally. Mr. Regan is also an expert in BCDR having developed and executed a multi-tiered program creating PWC’s firm-wide Disaster Recovery program. Mr. Regan has a Bachelor’s in Accounting from St. Leo University where he graduated Magna Cum Laude. Mr. Regan holds several certifications in the infrastructure space having achieved Accredited Tier Specialist (ATS), Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) and Certified Business Continuity Professional (CBCP) credentials. He holds multiple certifications and various systems designations through Digital Equipment Corporation, Research Triangle Institute, and NCSU.

Jake Ring

President & CEO
GIGA Data Centers

Prior to GIGA, Jake founded DC BLOX as CEO in 2014 to provide comprehensive data center services for the SMB market including colocation and managed services. In 2017 he was made Vice Chairman after pivoting the company to providing expanded availability and network services, then left to found GIGA Data Centers to serve the Enterprise colocation market. Prior to this, he was CMO for GE Energy Management where he led the global development of strategy and commercialization initiatives and led the creation of GE’s Critical Power business. Before GE, he spent over nine years managing portfolio companies for private equity investors of electrical & electronic manufacturing businesses. He has also held executive leadership roles with Newark Electronics, American Superconductor Corp., and Emerson Electric, in which he led Marketing & Product Management for the Liebert division. He can be reached here.

Jeff Burges

President & Founder
DataSite

Jeff Burges is the President & Founder of DataSite; a wholesale data center space and network services provider. DataSite provides mission critical data center facility environments coupled with best-in-class facility operations. The company’s data center services solve complex real estate challenges for technology intensive users in the corporate enterprise, managed services and content delivery networks industries and beyond. DataSite currently owns and operates world-class U.S. based facilities in Orlando, Florida; Atlanta, Georgia; and Boise, Idaho. Mr. Burges has owned and managed over 21 million square feet of commercial real estate, valued at over $2.5 billion. These portfolios consisted of data centers, telecom hotels, bio-technology labs as well as traditional office and industrial properties throughout the United States. Through his 32 year career in commercial real estate, Mr. Burges has gained a deep understanding of the property and critical infrastructure needs of the most discriminating technology companies, while simultaneously honing his real estate skill set. This combination enables DataSite to provide its clients with broad and uniquely valuable data center solutions. In 2003, Mr. Burges founded BURGES property + company with a specific strategy to purchase empty, undervalued and misunderstood data center properties as property investments. In 2008, Mr. Burges launched DataSite as the logical next step in providing the worldwide IT community best-in-class data center space by the kilowatt. Giving back to the industry and community is very important to Mr. Burges. Thus, Mr. Burges has served as an Officer on the Board of Directors of the San Diego Chapter of NAIOP; the Commercial Real Estate Association. He is a regular speaker and mentor to students and faculty at UCSD, San Diego State University and the University of San Diego. Mr. Burges, his wife and children are avid supporters of the MARSOC Foundation (Marine Special Operations Command) at Camp Pendleton, California. He is a graduate of the University of Southern California and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Management Consulting.

Daniel English

President & Co-Founder
Legacy Investing

Daniel English is the President and Co-Founder of Legacy Investing, an investment firm focused on technology impacted real estate. Legacy has completed >$3B in transactions across 19M SF in data centers, e-commerce industrial assets, and life science buildings. Prior to co-founding Legacy Investing, Daniel was a tech start-up executive with leadership roles across M&A, corporate development, strategy, and product management. Daniel studied engineering at Carnegie Mellon University and Economics and Finance at Emory University.

David Spiewak

Managing Principal
Next Tier HD / DJS Group

In 2013, David co-founded Next Tier HD, a boutique real estate private equity firm. Next Tier HD operates an investment, development and advisory platform with a mission critical, data center focus. Mr. Spiewak spends his time on Next Tier’s Investment business and its global Data Center consulting and brokerage arm (DJS Group). NextTier HD has developed and acquired over 3,000,000 sf of data centers and mixed-use assets since its 2013 inception, and over 6,000,000 sf of assets across the United States, since its founding partners started working together in 2000. Currently Next Tier HD has ownership in assets in North Carolina, Minnesota, Pittsburgh, and Virginia and is a partner and developer of Databank’s Georgia Tech HPCC facility in Atlanta, GA. David has specialized in the Mission Critical arena since 1997 having spent his career on both the IT and real estate sides of the house. Prior to Next Tier HD, David was a Principal and Executive Vice President of a global IT consulting firm, was a partner and Senior Vice President of T-Rex Capital, where he co-headed the acquisitions and leasing activities of the company. Prior to T-Rex, Mr. Spiewak was a Vice President of Tishman Real Estate, a founder of Plymouth Partners and a broker at Grubb & Ellis.

Raul Martynek

CEO
DataBank

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 25+ year veteran in the telecom and Internet Infrastructure sector. He most recently served as a Senior Advisor for Digital Bridge Holdings LLC. Prior to Digital Bridge, he served as Chief Executive Officer for New Jersey-based data center and managed services operator Net Access, LLC. Net Access was acquired in November 2015 by Denver-based data center operator Cologix. Prior to Net Access, he was the CEO of Voxel dot Net, Inc., a global managed hosting and cloud company, which was acquired by Internap Network Services Corp. in early 2012. Mr. Martynek also served as the Chief Restructuring Officer of Smart Telecom, a Dublin, Ireland-based fiber carrier which was acquired by Digiweb in 2009. Before that he evaluated investment opportunities in the telecommunications and Internet sector as a Senior Advisor at Plainfield Asset Management, a $4B hedge fund. Prior to Plainfield, Mr. Martynek spent 13 years with telecom and Internet provider InfoHighway Communications Corp; first as a Chief Operating Officer of Eureka Networks and then as President and Chief Executive Officer of InfoHighway. InfoHighway was acquired by Broadview Networks in 2007. Mr. Martynek earned a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Binghamton University and received a Master Degree in International Affairs from Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs.

David Dunn

COO
H5 Data Centers

David Dunn is COO of H5 Data Centers. Mr. Dunn has nearly 15 years of experience managing significant growth and delivering outsized returns on investment in the Internet infrastructure space. Mr. Dunn most recently served as vice president at the Zayo Group where he was responsible for managing the wavelength and mobile infrastructure business units. Prior to Zayo, Mr. Dunn was senior vice president at CoreSite where he held leadership roles in mergers & acquisitions, leasing, marketing and strategy. Before joining CoreSite, Mr. Dunn held roles at several private equity firms including The Carlyle Group and J.E. Robert Companies. Mr. Dunn earned a B.S. in Finance from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and an M.B.A. from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Mary Jane Horne

Senior VP, Network Operations & Engineering
iBASIS

Alan French

VP, Engineering
QTS

Tim Langan

Regional Vice President
DataBank

Brad Pauley

VP, Construction & Facilities Engineering
Ascent Data Centers

Robbie Sovie

EVP, Construction & Development
T5 Data Centers

As EVP of Construction and Development, Robbie is the leader of T5’s Construction Services division, where he sets the overall vision and business strategy. He holds the general contractors license and/or business license for construction activity across the organization. Robbie holds a degree in Construction Management from Western Carolina University.

Lori Lee-Simeonoglou

Regional Associate Director
Evoque Data Center Solutions

Greg Carender

VP, Global Infrastructure Deployment
EdgeConneX

Greg Carender is the Vice President of Global Deployment for EdgeConneX, one of the largest privately-owned data center developer/operators headquartered in the United States. Greg joined EdgeConneX in 2016 where he leads the company’s PMO and efforts to analyze, permit, develop, and deploy new data centers around the globe. Prior to joining EdgeConneX, Greg was a Director in PwC’s Capital Projects & Infrastructure practice where he worked on major initiatives for some of the world’s largest broadband and wireless carriers. Greg has over 20 years of experience leading operations and capital projects. He got his start in the data center industry back in the late 90s while building long haul fiber networks. Greg is a Purdue University graduate, has an MBA, and has completed post graduate course work at Stanford, Cornell, and Robert Gordon University. Greg holds several industry certifications and has served on Georgia Tech’s School of Building Construction Advisory Board for the past 5 years. He has also served on the American Institute of Constructors National Board of Directors for the past 7 years, where is the outgoing National President.

Lindsey Bruner

COO
CleanArc Data Centers

An accomplished executive, Lindsey brings together expertise in project development for both data centers and renewable energy. Lindsey led the advancement of several hundred megawatts of data center pipelines across the US and Europe, and her renewable energy development experience extends to the US, Canada and parts of South America. Prior to joining CleanArc, Lindsey served as Vice President of Project Development at CyrusOne, a leading global data center developer and operator specializing in delivering state-of-the-art digital infrastructure solutions across the globe. At CyrusOne, she led the global Project Development team and was responsible for the strategy, execution, and delivery of the company’s organic data center development projects. Prior to this role, Lindsey served as CyrusOne’s Senior Corporate Counsel of Real Estate & Construction, working alongside the company’s U.S. and global site selection and construction teams in all aspects of site selection and development. Previously, Lindsey served as Senior Attorney for the Americas division of RES Group, the world’s largest independent renewable energy company, where she represented the organization in various matters related to the development and construction of utility scale renewable energy projects. Lindsey began her career as an attorney in private practice focused on commercial and industrial real estate. Lindsey holds an AB in English from Duke University, a JD from the University of Denver Sturm College of Law, and an Executive MBA from Quantic School of Business and Technology.

Greg Force

President & CEO
Tindall Corporation

Greg Force joined Tindall Corporation in 1988. He was named CEO in 2018 after serving as President and COO for 14 years. Greg is a civil engineering graduate of Lehigh University and obtained his MBA from Georgia College & State University. He is a registered professional engineer in ten states and has held positions in engineering, sales, and project management. Before becoming a corporate member, Greg was the Vice President and General Manager of the Virginia Division. Greg has been actively involved in the Precast, Prestressed Concrete Institute (PCI) for over three decades, serving as Chairman of the Board in 2012, Chairman of Design Handbook Committee for the 7th Edition, Chairman of the Parking Structures Committee, and a member of the Technical Activities Council. Greg remains active on several technical committees, and he is presently the Chairman of Research and Development Council, as well as a member of the PCI Foundation Board of Trustees. He is a Fellow of PCI and ASCE and was named a Titan of the Industry by PCI in 2014. Greg was the recipient of the Mario J. Bertolini Leadership & Innovation Award in 2018.

Chris Pumphrey

Executive Director
Douglas County Economic Development Authority