Page 6 - EngineerIT June 2022

COVER STORY

Data centres are key to realising

Africa’s digital goals

Tesh Durvasula is the newly appointed CEO of Africa Data Centres. In this article he shares
his vison for the company and the experience he is bringing to the industry.

s a veteran of the data centre industry, my experience lies in business and
technology. With a 25-year track record of successful leadership and value
Ageneration in various entities across the digital infrastructure sector, I am
uniquely qualified to take Africa Data Centres to the next level. My experience is broad,
covering a full range of business elements, including finance, real estate, development,
operations, technology, marketing, and sales. During the course of my career, I have
served in a variety of executive roles at CyrusOne, a company that owns and operates
over 40 carrier-neutral data centers in North America, Europe, and South America,
where it provides colocation and peering services. I began my tenure there as the
company’s chief commercial officer, responsible for sales, marketing, and strategy, where
my aim was to drive value for the organisations and its investors through a combination
of rapid sales growth and mergers and acquisitions.
During my time at CyrusOne, I led the acquisitions of data centre providers Sentinel
and Cervalis, as well as the data centre assets of the financial trading campus of CME
Group. The three transactions had a combined value of over $1 billion. One of my major
strengths lies in value creation and scaling organisations, and I helped CyrusOne go from
an initial investment of $525 million to its eventual outcome, acquisition by KKR for $15 Tesh Durvasula
billion. Following this, I was appointed president of Europe for the company, where I
oversaw our expansion into England, Ireland, France and Germany, which saw CyrusOne
grow into one of the largest publicly traded real estate investment trusts or REIT’s in the to African businesses. Our vast cross-
US. Finally, I was appointed as chief executive officer for the company; it was during this border fibre broadband network, reliable
time that I helped grow our annual turnover from $221 million in 2012 to over $1 billion solar renewable energy solutions, and
in 2020. best-in-class network of interconnected
Before joining CyrusOne, I held a range of positions, including chief marketing and data centers, is helping to catapult Africa
business officer for Quality Technology Services, which IPO’d as a REIT, QTS Data Centers, into its economic future, and bring
chief marketing and business officer for Telx, a colocation and interconnection provider, it up to speed with its international
and held management positions at Abovenet, Sprint and Metromedia Fiber Networks. counterparts.
Throughout my career I have specialised in implementing growth strategies for Our aim at both Cassava
internet infrastructure businesses, and, realising that over the last two years, digital Technologies and at Africa Data Centres,
infrastructure has become more critical to life in the modern world than ever before, I is to use technology as an enabler of
joined Africa Data Centres, the continent’s leading carrier-neutral co-location data centre economic growth and inclusion, and
provider, as CEO in February this year. we strive to provide digital solutions for
individuals and businesses in Africa that
Rooted in Africa are inclusive and enable them to realise
Africa Data Centres is part of the Cassava Technologies group, an organisation that is their digital ambitions, and with that,
firmly rooted in Africa, and one that has a vision of a digitally connected future for every their economic potential.
citizen in Africa. The company is on a mission to use technology to transform the lives
of individuals and businesses across Africa, by enabling social mobility and economic Realising economic potential
prosperity, through a range of tools and solutions that meet Africa’s technological Getting back to the importance of data
needs. Our ecosystem of digital solutions is deeply integrated, and is significantly centres when it comes to realising this
increasing access to digital tools and connectivity across the continent. Cassava’s model economic potential, we believe Africa
is a vertically integrated platform, made up of product segments which together create is poised for a massive data centre
a pan-African technology leader, and our pan-African digital broadband network, boom as Internet penetration rates
interconnected data centres, solar renewable energy, and global partnerships enable rise, companies in every sector look
each company under the Cassava umbrella to work together to supply full solutions to the cloud, and regulation starts

EngineerIT | June 2022 | 4