Data Center Investment Conference & Expo, West

Zaid Ali Kahn

GM, Cloud AI & Advanced Systems Engineering
Microsoft

Zaid is currently GM in Microsoft’s Silicon, Cloud Hardware, and Infrastructure Engineering where he leads systems engineering and hardware development for Azure including AI systems and infrastructure. Zaid is part of the technical leadership team across Microsoft that sets AI hardware strategy for training and inference. Zaid's teams are also responsible for software and hardware engineering efforts developing specialized compute systems, FPGA network products and ASIC hardware accelerators. Prior to Microsoft Zaid was head of infrastructure at LinkedIn where he was responsible for all aspects of architecture and engineering for Datacenters, Networking, Compute, Storage and Hardware. Zaid also led several software development teams focusing on building and managing infrastructure as code. This included zero touch provisioning, software-defined networking, network operating systems (SONiC, OpenSwitch), self-healing networks, backbone controller, software defined storage and distributed host-based firewalls. The network teams Zaid led built the global network for LinkedIn, including POP's, peering for edge services, IPv6 implementation, DWDM infrastructure and datacenter network fabric. The hardware and datacenter engineering teams Zaid led were responsible for water cooling to the racks, optical fiber infrastructure and open hardware development which was contributed to the Open Compute Project Foundation (OCP). Zaid holds several patents in networking and, is a sought-after keynote speaker at top tier conferences and events. Zaid is currently the chairperson for the OCP Foundation Board. He is also currently on the EECS External Advisory Board (EAB) at UC Berkeley and a board member of Internet Ecosystem Innovation Committee (IEIC), a global Internet think tank promoting Internet diversity. Zaid has a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and Physics from the University of the South Pacific.

Christina Kite

Global Director, Strategy & Operations
Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Christina Kite is a senior technology, finance, and operations executive with more than 25 years of experience leading large, global cross-functional teams and programs for Fortune 50 and Government organizations. She is currently the Global Director for Strategy and Operations at Amazon Web Service’ Professional Services Before joining AWS, Christina was the Vice President of Global Business Strategy and Analytics at Oracle where she was responsible for driving key business and customer strategies and initiatives across the cloud development organization. Prior to Oracle, she was the SVP for Corporate Group Strategy & Operations at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. She has also held senior executive positions at Goldman Sachs, Cisco and Northrop Grumman. An aerospace engineer who grew to CFO, Christina also has her MBA from MIT and graduated cum laude with a BS in Management Science. She also has attended graduate programs at Stanford University and the University of Southern California (USC).

Jim Fletcher

Strategy Partner
Momenta Partners

Jim Fletcher joined Momenta Partners as a Strategy Partner, in the office of the CTO. in 2017. He most recently served IBM as an IBM Distinguished Engineer and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for the IBM Watson Internet of Things Platform. In this role, Jim had responsibility for the architecture and technical direction for IBM’s Internet of Things platform including identifying technologies, architecture, M&A and strategic partnerships. During his career at IBM, Jim served in executive management and technical leadership positions in areas of networking, IT systems management, and pervasive computing. Jim holds over 60 patents, is an IBM Master Inventor, and member of the IBM Academy.

Barak Turovsky

Director, Product - Google AI
Google

Barak Turovsky is responsible for product management and user experience for Google Translate and Natural Language Understanding within Google AI team. Barak focuses on applying cutting edge Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning technologies to deliver magical experiences across Google Search, Assistant, Cloud, Chrome, Ads and other products. Previously, Barak spent 2 years as a product leader within Google Wallet team. Prior to joining Google in 2011, Barak was Director of Product in Microsoft’s Mobile Advertising, Head of Mobile Commerce at PayPal and Chief Technical Officer in an Israeli start up. He lived more than 10 years in 3 different countries (Russia, Israel and the US) and fluently speaks three languages. Barak earned a Bachelor’s of Laws degree from Tel Aviv University, Israel, and a Master’s of Business Administration from the University of California, Berkeley.

Shawn Tugwell

Director, Data Center Design & Engineering
PayPal

Marc Bhuyan

Project Manager, Machine Learning Infrastructure
Google

Richard Reyher

Director, Core Platform & Infrastructure - Global Data Center Services
PayPal

Rich Reyher is a Director, Global Data Center Services for PayPal Inc., the world's leading global payments platform. After serving several years first in the U.S. Army military police and then as a federal officer in the U.S. Department of Justice, Rich started as a systems engineer for Aether Systems, a wireless web communications developer, where he managed operations of their flagship data center in Phoenix as Chief Engineer until the site was sold in 2003. Rich began his career on the eBay team as Chief Engineer, overseeing construction and maintenance of eBay's first, and largest Tier IV data center at the time. Promoted to Director in 2015, Rich led the expansion of the Phoenix region into the largest portfolio within Global Data Center Services. He championed operational excellence, drove efficiencies and implemented industry best practices, with a proven up-time record of 99.999%. Rich recently moved to PayPal with the primary responsibility to run day to day critical infrastructure operations and decide strategy for all data centers globally for PayPal. Rich is an active member of the Uptime Institute and Data Center Pulse.​

Herman Brown

Chief Information Officer
San Francisco District Attorney's Office

Herman Brown serves the City and County of San Francisco as the CIO for the SF District Attorney’s Office. His private-sector mentality and a track record of success, has proved valuable contributions to the City & County for the last 6 years; with the last 2 years in his current role. With over 25 years of experience in IT, Herman’s managed several enterprise initiatives that consolidated services, streamlined processes, and lowered overall city operating costs. His experience spans various industries; defense, manufacturing, healthcare, software development, advertising and now local government. Herman’s aims to bring efficiency, transparency, and productivity to government by leveraging technology. As CIO for the DA’s Office, Herman leads the effort to transform a government law firm laden with paper to a digital one that rivals any private sector organization.

Scott Peterson

CEO
Global Compute Infrastructure

Jeff O'Reilly

Senior Manager, Data Center Services
ServiceNow

Jeff O'Reilly is a Sr. Manager at ServiceNow running the cloud platform research and engineering lab. Jeff began his career at ServiceNow nearly 7 years ago as a Sr. Engineer where he implemented programs for data center compliance and site selection as well as standardizing data center infrastructure design to support ServiceNow's rapid growth. He was promoted to Sr. Manager in 2015 to run global data center operations before transitioning to his current role in 2017. Prior to coming to ServiceNow, Jeff worked at Casne Engineering for 2 years building an Engineering Service Desk, a subscription based model for engineering services providing reliable post project customer support and a steady revenue stream for the company to offset the volatility of work volume common to a consulting company. Jeff got his start in the data center world at Microsoft where he worked for 10 years as a data center manager, global capacity manager and research engineer leading the team which designed and implemented the EPMS for Microsoft's data centers. Jeff graduated from Washington State University with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering. He lives near Seattle, Washington where he enjoys doing DIY projects with his family on their 5 acre property.

Joseph Jankowski

Manager, Construction & Facilities Engineering
Intel Corporation

Joe spent over 20 years in various process and factory related engineering roles at Intel concluding with the start-up of a new wafer fab in China. More recently Joe has been leading the design and construction of Intel’s Santa Clara D2 Data Center which will result in over 50 MW of compute capacity with world class PUE and server density.

Richard Donaldson

Co-Founder & Head of Strategy and Platform
Requis

Nabeel Mahmood

Co-Founder
Nomad Futurist Foundation

Nabeel Mahmood is a Technologist, Futurist and a Keynote Speaker. His career is driven by one question – what’s next? He is passionate about the power of technology to deliver competitive and transformational change and the need to develop digital leadership that will create the enterprise of the future. He believes strongly in simplification, with a purpose. Nabeel brings 18 plus years of experience leading large-scale global technology organizations through seasons of explosive growth via M&A, global expansion, implementing new business models and technology innovation. His expertise includes leading organizations through transformation changes, connecting IT to the needs of the business, technology innovation, Big Data, Cloud, ERP, IoT, Mobility and Data Centers. He brings a unique blend of experiences spanning the entire breadth of technology from Grid to Chip. At, heart he’s a true technologist and futurist, he is a proven strategist, winsome communicator and leader with extraordinary vision and operational expertise within very large, complex organizations. Nabeel is a strategic CIO identifying opportunities that are being underpinned by emerging technologies. He serves on multiple boards and is an advisor to CIOs and CEO across a number of industries.

Mark Thiele

CEO & Founder
Edgevana

Joe Goldsmith

CRO
RagingWire Data Centers

Joe Goldsmith is Senior Vice President and Chief Revenue Officer at RagingWire Data Centers, responsible for all aspects of go-to-market strategy and execution including: sales, marketing, product management, business development, channels, and sales operations. Joe is a proven sales executive with more than 25 years of experience, including more than a decade in the data center industry. Prior to joining RagingWire, Joe was the Chief Revenue Officer for Vantage Data Centers, utilizing his expertise in complex contract and lease negotiations to lead Vantage to become an industry leader in wholesale data centers. Previously, Joe was Vice President and General Manager at Digital Realty, where he led efforts related to global alliances, channel sales, and colocation products, growing the company’s annual revenues from $200 million to over $1.5 billion. He has also served as Executive Director of Global Accounts at Qwest, Director of Sales at FiberTower, and Vice President of Sales at Colo.com. Mr. Goldsmith earned a Bachelor’s degree from the California State University-Sacramento.

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.

Clint Heiden

CRO
QTS

Clint Heiden joined QTS in 2018 to lead the company’s Hybrid Colocation Sales and Marketing organization. Clint has more than 26 years of sales leadership experience in the data center, telecommunications and internet technology industries. Prior to joining QTS, Clint served as Chief Commercial Officer for five years at another data center company where he helped sell and deliver more than 80 megawatts of critical capacity to customers. He also previously served as President of Sidera Networks and held senior leadership roles at PAETEC, Cable & Wireless America and UUNET. In these roles, Clint led organizations responsible for over one billion dollars of annual enterprise revenue while at the same time generating significant organic revenue growth. Clint received his BBA in Computer Information Systems from James Madison University, where he continues to sit on the Board. Clint lives in McLean, Virginia with his wife and four children.

Jonathan Atkin

Managing Director
RBC Capital Markets

Jonathan Atkin is a Managing Director at RBC Capital Markets. His focus areas include communications, internet and data infrastructure as well as cloud computing and telecom services. During the last six years, Jonathan has received the #1 ranking from Institutional Investor in the Communications Infrastructure sector. He has also received #1 rankings from Thomson Reuters in Telecom Services and Real Estate Equities, a #1 ranking from the Wall Street Journal in Internet Services, and a #1 ranking from the Financial Times in Telecom Services. Before joining RBC, Jonathan was a senior consultant at BIA Companies focused on wireless strategy and valuation, worked in corporate strategy at Daimler-Benz AG, and was a policy analyst with the United States Congress. He has an MBA from Columbia University and BS and MS degrees in engineering from Stanford University. He is a two-time finisher of the Ironman triathlon.‎

Kevin Dalton

Chief Data Center Officer
Cumulus Data

Kevin Dalton serves as Chief Data Center Officer for Cumulus Data, a division of Talen Energy Corporation. In this role, he leads the design and construction of data centers and supports technical customer sales efforts. He has over 30 years of experience developing 1,000 MW of data center capacity ($10B CapEx) across over 75 data centers globally. Mr. Dalton is an expert in leveraging supply chain optimization and modular prefabricated construction techniques to drive rapid growth, improved quality, and speed to market. Throughout his career, he has set the standard for next-generation data center designs and led multiple successful sustainability initiatives. Prior to joining Cumulus Data, Mr. Dalton served as Senior Vice President of Design & Construction for NTT Global Data Centers, responsible for leading the team that designs and delivers world-class data centers. Before his tenure with NTT Global Data Centers, he spent 12 years at Digital Realty in technical and senior management roles, including seven years as Vice President of Engineering, leading teams of engineers to deliver data center solutions for customers around the world. Mr. Dalton previously spent 10 years at MGE UPS Systems, a world leader in uninterrupted power supply systems, and nine years at McClier Corporation, a design-build firm. Mr. Dalton earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago.

David Waller

Vice President
Harrison Street

Arman Khalili

Founder & CEO
Foundation Data Centers

Arman Khalili is the Founder and CEO of Foundation Data Center and is a Board Member of Evocative and brings with him over 25 years of experience in Internet Infrastructure industry. Prior to joining the company, Arman served as a Principal at Industry Capital a real assets based private equity firm in San Francisco. He was the founder and CEO of CentralColo also known as Element Critical. Prior to that, he was the CEO of Black Lotus, a leader in DDoS mitigation company, which was acquired by Level 3, and was the Founder/CEO of UnitedLayer, the largest privately held colocation provider in San Francisco. He was the founder of Sirius – one of the first ISPs in Silicon Valley, as well as the Co-founder and CTO of MusicBank, the first music subscription company. He has held numerous senior consulting positions at Level3, AT&T and Apple Computers.

Ryan Oro

Senior VP, Revenue
EdgeCore Internet Real Estate

​Ryan is the Senior Vice President of Revenue for EdgeCore Internet Real Estate. In this capacity, Ryan is accountable and provides strategic direction for the sales, marketing, and product functions of the company. Prior to EdgeCore, Ryan was Vice President and Group Head of the General Management function at CoreSite Realty Corporation where he was a member of CoreSite’s Senior Leadership Team. Prior to CoreSite, Ryan worked in the Financial Institutions Investment Banking Group at Wachovia Securities / Wells Fargo.

Jeff Ferry

Board Member & Investor
Elea Digital

Andy Carlson

CFO, Colocation & Cloud Infrastructure - zColo
Zayo Group

Chris Flynn

Chief Investment Officer
Strategic Data Center Fund Manager

Chris Flynn brings more than 25 years of commercial real estate experience and well over $25 billion in overall real estate transaction experience to Strategic Data Center Fund Manager, LLC. As Chief Investment Officer, Chris provides the strategic vision to turn business goals into actionable plans with appropriate risk management. In this role, he is responsible for acquisitions, leasing and management strategy. Prior to Strategic Data Center Fund Manager, LLC, Chris was President at Lightstone Data Fund where he served as the company’s leader in the investment of digital infrastructure assets. In this capacity, he had overall responsibility for the strategic planning, capital raising, financing, acquisitions, development, operation and leasing. Prior to joining Lightstone, Chris was a Vice President of Global Real Estate at EdgeConneX, a wholesale data center owner and developer, where he was responsible for all aspects of real estate including the acquisition and development of 40 data centers in the U.S., Canada, Europe and South America. The EdgeConneX portfolio consisted of over 3 million square feet, in excess of 350 megawatts of critical power and over $6 billion worth of data center transactions which helped EdgeConneX to grow from one data center in 2013 to a global presence in the edge and hyperscale market. He was formerly the Director of Real Estate at XO Communications, a telecommunications company owned by Verizon Communications which provides managed and converged internet protocol network services for small and medium-sized enterprises. During his time at XO, Chris led a real estate team responsible for over $10 billion in acquisitions, renewals and dispositions and managed over 50,000 telecom license agreements. Chris serves on the board of directors for The First Tee of Washington, D.C. and volunteers at Stone Ridge School and Mater Dei School.

Vinay Nagpal

President | Executive Director & Founding Member
InterGlobix | IEIC

26+ years of global experience in Data Center & Connectivity industry specializing in Product & Business Management Vinay Nagpal is an industry leader and visionary with global experience developing products and solutions in wholesale and retail colocation data centers with a strong focus on connectivity, subsea and terrestrial fiber. Currently, he is the President of InterGlobix LLC, a global consulting and advisory firm focused on the convergence of data centers, subsea and terrestrial fiber. Vinay is also the Co-Founder and Member of QTS Richmond NAP, which is a global Internet Interconnection hub in Virginia offering the lowest-latency, highest-capacity subsea connectivity. He is the Founding Member & Executive Director of Internet Ecosystem Innovation Committee (IEIC), an independent global committee that promotes Internet diversity and forming of Internet nexus points. Vinay also serves on the Leadership Board of NVTC Data Center & Cloud Committee, and actively leads Northern Virginia’s data center and connectivity initiatives. Vinay has been involved in the subsea developments in Virginia. He also serves on the Submarine Networks EMEA Customer Advisory Board, LINX NoVA Customer Advisory Board, and NVTC’s Executive Circle. As an active participant in industry forums, Vinay is a member of the PTC Membership Committee, Marketing & Communications Committee and SubOptic Diversity & Inclusion Working Group. Vinay’s past endeavors include being part of the Open-IX Association board to build open standards for data centers and IXPs. As the Vice President of Product Management at Digital Realty / DuPont Fabros (DFT), he led product management of DFT’s Data Center, Connectivity and Managed Services. During his tenure, he developed company’s carrier-neutral data center connectivity and peering services, designed and implemented dark fiber networks and supported customers’ network requirements. His senior-level network-centric positions at Tata Communications, Verizon, MCI, Digex and UUNET allowed his to productize data center and connectivity services across US, Canada, London, Singapore, Australia and India. Vinay holds an MBA in Information Systems, a B.S. in Computer Science, an ITIL certification and a Higher Diploma in Software Engineering. He has authored white papers, blogs, and industry publications on datacenter and connectivity services. He has been invited a speaker to several renowned conferences across the world.

Therese Kerfoot

SVP, Operations & International
EdgeCore Digital Infrastructure

Therese is based in the Company’s Denver office and leads EdgeCore’s day-to-day data center operations and customer-lifecycle activities, from lease execution and move in through expiration and move out, including space build out, on-going support, and incident management. Therese brings significant experience in designing strategy and leading execution and operation of end-to-end service-delivery and customer-support teams, systems, and processes. Therese joined EdgeCore following roles of progressive accountability at CoreSite Realty Corporation, most recently as Vice President supporting and leading the company’s activities around customer-lifecycle management for more than 1,200 customers and $500M+ in annualized revenue. Her responsibilities included a) on-boarding and capacity deployment, b) on-going support via self-service systems (portal management) and a team of Strategic Account Service Representatives, c) capacity and contract management, d) service-processes design and improvement, and e) incident engagement, remediation, and avoidance. Prior to CoreSite, Therese was a Dean’s Research Fellow at the University of Colorado Law School, where she authored and collaborated in authoring works related to cybersecurity, telecommunications, and technology. Therese holds a B.A. in International Business from The University of Texas at Austin and a J.D. from the University of Colorado School of Law.

Lane Anderson

Executive VP, Development & Strategic Procurement
QTS

With more than 25 years of experience in mission critical construction and design, Lane Anderson has an extensive background in MEP projects and design and construction leadership. Having delivered over 3.5 million square feet of data center projects, Lane is well versed in designing for efficiency to pursue low PUE facilities and has strong expertise in building design and construction teams. At QTS, he is responsible for Corporate Development, Construction, Design and Strategy, as well as Strategic Procurement.

Jennifer Reininger

Project Developer
CyrusOne

Michael Durham

GM, Silicon Valley
CoreSite

Michael Durham is the General Manager for CoreSite’s Bay Area market, responsible for the overall investment performance and business operation of CoreSite’s San Jose, Milpitas, and Santa Clara facilities. Mr. Durham has been with CoreSite in this role for 18 months. Prior to CoreSite, he worked in Mergers and Acquisitions for Agilent Technologies managing inorganic growth and IP licensing; as a Financial Analyst for Xilinx’s R&D and CTO groups optimizing budget spend and resource allocation; and as a transportation engineer for CHA, Inc. designing traffic intersections and general aviation airports. Mr. Durham received a B.S. and a Masters of Civil Engineering from Cornell University.

Josh Zhou

Manager, Applications - High Tech
Oracle

Jason Mayer

Co-Founder
EPI - Mission Critical

Jason is co-founder of EPI - Mission Critical where he applies 15+ years experience building Internet infrastructure including; Data Center, Co-location, Virtualization, Caching, Connectivity, Security and Analytics. Prior to founding EPI - Mission Critical Jason played a significant roll at Amazon Web Services' expanding it's data center footprint globally, delivering over 100 new sites ranging from small POP's to Large Availability zones (150kw to 50 MW). While at AWS, Jason championed best practices with engineering and operations around site selection world wide. Jason created the site selection strategy adopted by his infrastructure peers and worked closely with real estate/asset design acquisition teams to address GAP in TCO for data center owners & operators.

Tejo Pydipati

SVP, Design & Construction
Stream Data Centers

Tejo manages the design processes and leads the construction of Stream Data Centers’ expanding portfolio of Hyperscale Data Centers, Private Data Center™ facilities, Build-to-Suit Data Centers and Ready-to-Fit™ powered shells. Tejo leverages his design, construction and mission critical background to support Stream’s ongoing growth, driving alignment across the design and development of new data center facilities and bolstering success for customers seeking to expand their IT footprints and capabilities. Tejo holds a Master’s degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Stanford University.

Jeffrey Moerdler

Member
Mintz

Jeff heads our Real Estate and Communications practices in New York and has significant experience in general commercial real estate law. Jeff’s general real estate practice includes acquisitions, sales, development, leasing, and borrower’s side financing. He also has a particular focus on real estate challenges facing communications, technology, and energy companies, and represents property owners and telecom companies in telecom real estate matters, such as data center leases. His clients include both large national companies and smaller, local clients. He is frequently invited to speak on real estate, data center, and telecom topics. He also writes for several industry publications, and he is regularly quoted in national media. Jeff was a Commissioner of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and led many of its major real estate and telecom transactions.

William McCausland

Senior Economic Development Market Specialist
Dominion Energy

Bruce Myatt

Director, Data Center Engineering & Design
Enercon Services

Bruce Myatt is a Director in the Mission Critical Data Center Group. He offers over 35 years data center and power systems engineering, design, analysis, business/ project development and business operations experience, Bruce serves as a Project Advisor, Technical Director, and Client Sponsor for selected Data Center clients. He is responsible for the development and support of new client business and projects. He leads contractual negotiations and client relationships and he supports Enercon engineering teams with the delivery of complex and important projects related to data center design template design guidelines and equipment specifications, as well as on-site power generation and distribution.

Chris Pumphrey

Executive Director
Douglas County Economic Development Authority