EdgeCore Taps Lee Kestler As CEO Amid Rapid Expansion
Data center developer EdgeCore has appointed industry veteran Lee Kestler as its new CEO.
Kestler takes the helm at a 5-year-old firm that has quickly emerged as one of the fastest-growing developers of data center campuses in North America following its acquisition by private equity firm Partners Group in November.
A well-known data center executive with more than 25 years of experience in the sector, Kestler previously served as chief commercial officer at Vantage Data Centers. Before that he was a senior vice president at Dupont Fabros Technology, and he previously held roles at Nextra Energy, GridCure, Exodus and Savvis. Kestler will step into his new role immediately, EdgeCore said Thursday.
"Lee has an extensive track record of successfully growing and scaling brands in the data center industry, with a special focus on working alongside hyperscalers, leading enterprises, and cloud providers," Ed Diffendal, managing director of the Americas infrastructure division at Partners Group, said in a release. "We are excited to welcome him into his new role in driving EdgeCore to new levels of growth and success.”
Founded in 2018 by a group of former CoreSite executives, EdgeCore operates data center campuses in Northern Virginia and near Phoenix. But the firm’s development pipeline has been supercharged since its November acquisition by private equity firm Partners Group, which has committed to investing as much as $1.2B toward expanding the company’s footprint.
EdgeCore recently began construction on projects in Reno, Nevada, Silicon Valley and Northern Virginia. In February, the company purchased a 400-acre data center site near Phoenix from social media giant Meta.
"We have power and land in the key markets," EdgeCore Chief Financial Officer Jeff Dorr told Data Center Frontier in February. "We can get close to 500 megawatts of capacity out of our existing campuses. We think we're really well positioned to capture some market share here over the next couple of years."
