Karen Bach

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Michael Tobin OBE

Michael is a highly successful serial technology entrepreneur & pioneer with over 30 years’ experience in the telecoms & technology sector.

As Chief Executive, Michael Tobin OBE led TelecityGroup plc, a leading FTSE250 Technology company from 2002 to 2014.

He joined Redbus in 2002 delisting it from the main market to AIM, & then took it private, winning the London Business Awards “Business Turnaround of the Year” award in 2005. After engineering the merger with Telecity, & the acquisition of Globix he successfully re-listed TelecityGroup in October 2007 winning the accolade of UK Innovation Awards IPO of the year 2008 & the techMARK Personality of the year in the same year.

Subsequently he grew the business organically & acquired businesses in Manchester, Helsinki, Dublin, Sofia, Istanbul & Warsaw transforming the company from £6m market cap in 2002 to being a top performer in the FTSE250 worth over £2.5Bn, being recognized as Britain’s Most admired Tech Company in 2012.

Prior to joining TelecityGroup, Tobin headed-up Fujitsu’s e-Commerce operations in Frankfurt, Germany. Before that, he ran ICL’s Danish outsourcing subsidiary out of Copenhagen Denmark. He also held several senior positions based in Paris for over 11 years including Business Development Director at International Computer Group coordinating global distribution of IT infrastructure.

As a Non Exec Director, Tobin was instrumental in transforming PACNET in Hong Kong from a Sub Sea Cable operator to a successful Datacenter operator culminating in its sale in 2015 to Telstra for $800m. In 2017 he was the key driver of the sale of Itconic in Spain to Equinix generating over 7x money for Carlyle in just 19 months, and as a NED oversaw the sale of Datapipe in New York to Rackspace and Basefarm in Norway to Orange on behalf of Abry Partners.

Tobin has been involved in multiple PE backed Datacentre transactions around the world including Teraco in South Africa, ITConic in Spain, Basefarm in Norway and Datapipe in the USA. He currently holds numerous Technology Non-Exec Directorships around the world & is the Chair of AIM listed Audioboom plc and BigBlu Broadband plc.

Mr Tobin is Chairman of the Friends of The Loomba Trust supporting widows in India, a Patron and Founders Circle Member of The British Asian Trust, Founder of the CEO Sleepout event for Action for Children & has sat on fundraising boards of the Princes Trust, Cooperation Ireland & the Make-a-Wish Foundation. Mr Tobin’s charitable focus is primarily the education, welfare & empowerment of young people & children around the world.

In 2016 Mr Tobin slept in the streets to raise money and awareness for Action for Children, completed his Duke of Edinburgh Diamond Award, and raised over £100k running 40 Marathons in 40 consecutive days for the 40th anniversary of the Princes Trust. In 2020 Tobin trekked to the South Pole raising over £500k for the Brain Tumour Charity

Michael’s business & thought leadership have been widely recognized. He was named ‘UK IT Services Entrepreneur of the Year’ by Ernst & Young in 2009, 2010 & 2011; PWC Tech CEO of the Year 2007; London Chamber of Commerce 'Business Person of the Year’ for 2009 & 2010; In 2009 was named techMARK ‘Personality of the Year’; In 2007 & 2009 he was the winner of the DCE Outstanding Leader of the Year, & in 2008 won ‘Data Centre Business Person of the Year’ at the Data Centre Leaders awards. He was awarded ‘Outstanding Contribution to the Data Centre Industry’ at the Data Centre Europe awards & in 2011 received a Lifetime Achievement Award for services to the industry.

In 2005 he was named number 31 of Britain’s Top 50 Entrepreneurs & in 2014 he was honoured in the Queens New Years Honours List with the Order of the British Empire (OBE) medal for Services to the Digital Economy.

In 2016 he received business awards for Outstanding Non Executive Director of the year in the Best Business Awards 2016 and the Global Business Excellence Awards 2016, and Chairman of the Year at the Stevie Awards in the USA. In 2017 he was recognized as Datacentre and Cloud Influencer of the Decade in Monaco at the Broadgroup Industry Awards and named in Smith and Williamson’s Top 25 Power Individuals of Industry.

Michael has many motivational & Inspirational speaking engagements & in 2014 he launched his first book, “Forget Strategy, Get Results” to great acclaim, and his second book, ”Live, Love, Work, Prosper” was released in 2018. His third book, “Lifting the Floor” was released in 2020.

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William Barney

During his 25-year tenure as an investor, board member and CEO in Asia, Bill Barney was fortunate to assemble and manage some of the strongest performing management teams in the region. These teams consistently achieved the industry's highest growth rates for both ebitda and revenue growth.

Across the telecom and technology sectors, Bill has been an advocate for regulatory and industry change and a major proponent of Cloud Computing and Open networks. He regularly participates in industry meetings and keynoted major conferences including the Pacific Telecommunications Council and CommunicAsia,

In 2008 Bill was named CEO of the Year by TelecomAsia. Bill was voted Best Asia Pacific Telecom Executive by readers of CommsDay in 2009. Finally in 2017 Bill was given the Data Center Achievement Award at the annual the Data Cloud Asia Awards and was later recognized as one of the "100 Most Influential CEO's in Telecom" . In 2018 Bill was recognized by the Economic Times as the Top CEO to work for in India and was given the prestigious Broad Group award for Thought Leadership in Data Centers in 2019. In 2023 Bill was recognized by the PTC for his Leadership with the Richard Barber Lifetime Achievement Award.

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Canan Anli

Canan is a strategy consultant, investor and advisor. Canan has been an investor in the Digital Infrastructure and Technology space in the last 11 years working for Mubadala Investment Company. She has led and negotiated several deals for Mubadala in the digital infrastructure, telecoms, software and services space in the US, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Canan is currently supporting PMP Strategy with their principal investor business focusing on digital infrastructure and enterprise software. Previously, Canan also worked for McKinsey. Canan holds a MSc in Earthquake Engineering from Bogazici University and an MBA from INSEAD

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Robin Brown

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Olga Bezlyudova

Olga is the Director at Energy, Infrastructure, and Energy Transition Group in the CIBC Investment Banking team based in NYC and responsible for the origination and execution of M&A mandates across energy and infra sectors, including digital infra.

She has over 15 years of buy-side experience across various infrastructure subsectors and geographies, including Europe, CIS, and the US. Prior joining CIBC, Olga spent several years as Director in Mubadala managing $6 billion investment mandate in Russia and CIS and and led the latest capital raise for IXcellerate, the largest private data center in Russia, and a few other deals with data centers.

During her experience Olga closed numerous cross-border private equity and project finance transactions and personally managed asset portfolio representing over $8 billion of enterprise value. She has also served as a board member for IXcellerate data centres, Western High Speed Diameter toll road, Ust-Luga LPG and light oils transhipment terminal and others.

Olga holds an MBA with distinction from Warwick Business School and Master’s degree in Economics from the State University – Higher School of Economics. She is fluent in English and Russian and conversational in German.

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Dharman Sury

Dharman Sury has an atypical and versatile profile as an Indian born in France and having grown up in India, the US and France, and worked in the UK and several Asian countries.

His expertise is centered on TMT, Finance and hi-growth markets, initially with Orange in both B2C and B2B and more recently with Data 4 bringing an insider understanding of the market dynamics at play in digital infrastructure.

His earlier experiences relate to a fast-track senior civil servant with the French Administration. Initially with the French Treasury and subsquently at a political level as a close aid and senior advisor to Gilles de Robien, Minister of Education and Research designing and implementing structural changing policies in R&D and Innovation.

Dharman has an outstanding academic background, as a member of the elite Corps des Mines and as a graduate of Ecole des Mines de Paris.

He was nominated Top10 CFO for 2017 by DAF Magazine and ranked in the Top50 Global Leaders in Data Center Finance in 2019 by Data Economy. He was awarded Chevalier des Palmes Académiques in 2007 for his contribution to France's Research. He has been elected as Conseiller du Commerce Extérieur de la France and mentors SMEs on their international expansion.

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Tara Giunta

Tara K. Giunta, a partner in the Litigation Department of Paul Hastings, is Co-Chair of its ESG Risk, Strategy and Compliance Group and a Member of the firm’s Investigations and White Collar Defense practice, which is routinely recognized by the Global Investigations Review (GIR) as a leading investigations practice and one of a handful of global "elite" practice groups. Ms. Giunta is a recognized risk, strategy and compliance expert and advisor to global companies on corporate governance and enterprise risk management. She advises C-suites and boards in identifying and mitigating risks, developing and enhancing compliance programs, investigating and remediating wrongdoing and/or internal control weaknesses, conducting compliance-related due diligence in M&A and other commercial transactions, and developing reporting and disclosure frameworks.

Her work has spanned the globe, performing risk assessments, conducting investigations and rolling out comprehensive compliance programs in Africa, the Middle East, South America, and Asia.

Ms. Giunta was recognized by GIR in its inaugural Women in Investigations list, which recognized 100 women across the globe who are “achieving great things in a competitive and notoriously tough area of law.” She is also Co-Chair of the firm’s Global Diversity Council and Chair of the firm’s Women’s Initiative. Ms. Giunta is Founder and Editor of the firm’s publication, Breaking the Glass Ceiling: Women in the Boardroom, now in its Fifth Edition, and speaks often on corporate governance, ESG compliance and risk. Ms. Giunta was a recipient of Corporate Counsel’s 2019 Women, Influence & Power in Law Awards under the Thought Leadership category.

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Laurence Hainault

Laurence G. Hainault is a Managing Director in the Capital Markets & Advisory division, based in Paris.

She is a Senior Member of the Client Advisory Group, Head of EMEA Telecoms as well as responsible for covering Telecom, Media and Technology clients in France. She has also been leading the dedicated Telecom Infrastructure Initiative.

Ms. Hainault joined Credit Suisse First Boston in October 2000 through the merger with Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette (“DLJ”) where she was an Associate in the Mergers & Acquisitions team. She started her career in 1997 as a member of the DLJ Media & Telecom team, based in New York to then work in the M&A team in London in 2000. In the same year, she joined the Credit Suisse TMT team, based in London until 2009.

Ms. Hainault holds 24 years of experience working for TMT clients on a wide range of assignments including M&A, ECM, HY and DCM.

Ms. Hainault holds a Magistère degree in "Bank-Finance-Insurance" and a DEA-Research Master in International Economics and Finance from the University of Paris Dauphine as well as a Master degree in Business Law from the University of Paris Pantheon Sorbonne.

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Stephen Bowes-Phipps

Steve has over 30 years of operational systems management experience. After managing MBNA Data Centres and IT operations in the UK and Ireland for 5 years, he joined web hosting company GlobalCenter when it was expanding from the US into Europe. Sitting on the senior management team, he oversaw the building of five Internet Data Centres in London, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Munich and Paris until Exodus Internet bought the company in 2001.

After four years in Visa Europe, in 2007, he joined his Alma Mater, Hertfordshire University, to become their Head of Data Centres and worked with the UK’s Higher and Further Education IT funding arm, Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), to assist in embedding Green IT in UK HE and FE institutions, and throughout the EU. In 2010, the University of Hertfordshire became the first European university to comply with the EU Code of Conduct for Data Centres and has won in categories at the European Datacentre Leaders Awards 2010, the Uptime Institute Green Enterprise IT (GEITTM) 2011 and the EAUC Green Gown Awards 2011.

Steve joined PTS Consulting as their Senior Consultant on Data Centres in 2015 and has presented at many conferences at home and abroad on reducing DC investment risk, Best Practices in Green IT and exemplar case studies. As well as being an Advisor to the Board of the Data Centre Alliance, he is involved in various industry bodies forming new international standards and metrics for IT and Data Centre efficiency. Steve joined State Street Bank & Trust this year, focused on Data Centre transformation and management, engineering and operations throughout EMEA.

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Vijay Mistry

An established figure in the Data Centre Industry with over 25+ years’ experience in Financial Services, Infrastructure and Data Centre Environments. Prior to VIPA Digital, Vijay was the Operations, VP at Digital Realty, responsible for the company's portfolio of Data Centres across Europe.

Vijay also spent 20 years at Morgan Stanley where he held a number of senior leadership positions including the European Head of Enterprise Computing, Global Head of Data Centre Portfolio Management and European Head of Enterprise Data Centres, where he transformed the team into a world class organisation, earning numerous industry accolades .

Vijay holds a BSc in Information Systems Design, and sits on a number of advisory boards within the DC Industry.

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Fundiswa Nkuta

Fundiswa is currently pursuing her MBA at London Business School. Prior to her MBA, she was an Investment Associate at African Infrastructure Investment Managers which focuses on infrastructure equity investments and development assets across Africa. She was primarily responsible for analysing new investment opportunities, structuring and executing transactions as well as asset management.

Fundiswa has worked across various banking roles, where she was part of the advisory team supporting large and mid-sized corporations, private equity firms, entrepreneurs and governments on executing sell-side and buy-side mandates. She also served her articles at Nedbank on the CA training programme which included rotations across various areas of the corporate and investment bank.

Fundiswa holds a Bachelor of Business Science Honours degree and a Post-Graduate Diploma in Accounting from the University of Cape Town as well as a Post-Graduate Diploma in the Drafting & Interpretation of Contracts from the University of Johannesburg. She qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 2017 and is an Audit & Risk committee member on the board of Equal Education. She is also the first-ever winner of The Tech Capital's 35 Under 35 Award (2022).

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Michalis Grigoratos

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Calvin Chu Yee Ming

Calvin Chu Yee Ming is a Managing Partner at Eden Strategy Institute, an award-winning strategy consulting firm focusing on social innovation and sustainability. Eden has advised over a hundred Fortune 500 clients in more than 20 countries, including multinational organizations such as Bell Labs, DBS Bank, General Electric, Medtronic, and Samsung; multilateral organisations such as UNDP, UNESCO, UNGC, UNICEF, and UN Women; as well as the governments in Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, and Saudi Arabia.

Calvin has served as a Board Member of Bettr Lives, BioFourmis, Conjunct Consulting, New Energy Nexus Ventures, Rotary Club, and the World Toilet Organisation, as well as President of the Chicago Booth Alumni Club of Singapore. Before founding Eden, Calvin was Vice-President of Business and Strategy Development at the Singapore Exchange (SGX), and Business Group Director leading the Singapore office of a London-listed global consulting firm. He was recognised as a NetImpact Change-maker in 2014 and inducted into the International Who’s Who of Professionals in 2009.

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David Liggitt

David is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of datacenterHawk. David started the company in 2014 with the vision to help customers make better decisions about data center real estate. His 15 years of industry experience and leadership have helped create a global platform trusted and depended on by the world’s largest data center owners, investors, consultants and users of digital infrastructure. He has been active in the data center industry since 2007.

David also started the datacenterHawk Podcast, an industry focused video and audio experience exploring relevant digital infrastructure topics. He frequently hosts other CEO’s and senior leaders from data center companies to provide thought leadership on the future of the space. He also highlights key trends with analytics and data found only on the datacenterHawk platform.

Prior to starting datacenterHawk, David was a leader in CBRE’s Data Center Solutions Group and assisted clients with their digital infrastructure needs. His time at CBRE was instrumental in allowing him to understand the challenges and solutions needed to help companies grow their data center infrastructure.

David currently lives in Dallas with his wife and two boys. He is a proud graduate of Baylor University and is actively involved in coaching youth sports, his neighborhood and his church.

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Roxanna Plinsky

Roxanna Plinsky joined Start Campus in December 2022 as Chief Growth Officer to help to grow a truly green data center platform in Southern Europe and support global enterprise customers with their Data Center initiatives and ultimate goals. Additionally, she is a Founder and CEO of Global Data Centers & Partners, a consulting firm for Data Center Operators, Investors interested in expanding into new markets.

She has 18 years of telecommunication, data center, and cloud experience. Roxanna has built an extensive global network of industry leaders via partnerships with high-growth multinational corporations by working and living abroad for many years. Roxanna has held several senior management roles with organizations in the United States, Singapore, and Europe.

She relocated from Sweden to San Francisco in 1998. She completed her Science Studies in Sweden and later received a B.A. in Marketing and Account Planning from the University of Art, San Francisco. Additionally, she is on the Advisory Board of Big Data, San Francisco State University, speaks three languages, and holds U.S. and Swedish citizenship.

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Ronnie Preiskel

Ronnie is a co-founder of Preiskel & Co and has over 20 years experience working in the telecoms, internet and technology sectors in a wide variety of roles. His broad and in-depth understanding of the TMT sectors and inside knowledge of the operations of telcos and startups allow Ronnie to provide clients with practical, result orientated advice and solutions to their corporate, regulatory and commercial issues. He has been ranked for many years as one of the leading telecoms lawyer by Chambers & Partners, Legal 500 and WhoswhoLegal.

Ronnie has the benefit of having worked for many years within the industry including for British Telecommunications PLC, a Vodafone JV and a mobile services start-up.

He has advised the Governments of the Falkland Islands and of The Bahamas on the introduction of new communications law and on the privatization of The Bahamas incumbent operator. He also advises a Satellite Regulator and a range of MNOs, MVNOs and service providers on a variety of corporate, commercial and regulatory issues

Ronnie also advises a leading payment services provider, the largest independent data centre in Russian and on various telecoms projects in Africa.

In addition to his work in the TMT sector, Ronnie also advises a number of retail and leisure businesses on fund raising, franchising and commercial matters.

Ronnie has an MA in Economics and Law from Cambridge University, an MBA from INSEAD and speaks four languages.

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Claude Achcar

Claude Achcar is the Founder and Managing Partner of Actel Consulting, a highly specialized Tech advisory firm. The company, founded in 2002, differentiates through independent, deep-dive, and hands-on guidance to deliver implementable advisory. Clients include investors, innovators, corporates, telecoms, service providers, and regulators.

Claude has over 30 years of ICT experience. He began his career as an AI Research Associate followed by eleven years in various engineering, marketing, and operations roles with Nortel. Prior to Actel Consulting, Claude was Managing Director and VP Asia at Ciena.

Claude is an engineer by training, holding B.Eng. & M.Eng. (Speech Recognition) degrees from Ecole Polytechnique, and an MBA from McGill University, both in Montreal, Canada.

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Barry Gross

Barry is co-leader of Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner’s global practice for the Data Centres and Digital Infrastructure Team. The BCLP team has acted for operators, funders, investors and corporates on a range of investment, leasing and M&A transactions and in the last two years has closed over 2GW of data centre leasing transactions globally.

Barry has experience advising on data centre acquisitions, the management and disposal of data centre sites, data centre leasing, forward funding arrangements and more. His clients include developers of, investors in and operators and funders of data centres. Barry is a regular participant in DCDI panels on diverse topics including the future of data centre investment and financing, Data Centres as an infrastructure investment opportunity and the challenges of ESG in the data centre industry.

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Andrew Jay

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Brian Moon

Brian Moon is CEO of the Pacific Telecommunications Council (PTC). Prior to joining PTC, he held a variety of roles over a span of 15 years at the Consumer Technology Association (CTA). He was the vice president of sales and business development at CTA, where he led the sales and business development team for CTA and CES, driving growth and industry engagement for the world’s most influential technology event. Previously he was vice president of international sales from 2014 to 2020 and national accounts manager from 2003 to 2009.

In addition to his two tenures at CTA, Brian was also vice president of sales, convention and allied membership with the National Restaurant Association, and manager of industry relations and exhibits at the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric, and Neonatal Nurses.

Brian holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Professional and Technical Communication with a concentration in Marketing from Rochester Institute of Technology. He is a member of the International Association of Exhibition and Events (IAEE) and is certified in exhibition management (CEM).

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Dr. Dmitriy Antropov

Dr. Dmitriy Antropov is Co-Head of the Private Infrastructure Partnership Investments business unit, based in Zug. He is a member of the Private Infrastructure Investment Committee. Dmitriy is leading Partners Group datacenter thematic globally and has been involved in multiple digital infrastructure investments in the US, Europe and Asia. He has been with Partners Group since 2008 and has 18 years of industry experience.

Prior to joining Partners Group, he worked at UniCredit Group, L.E.K. Consulting and Apax Partners. He holds a PhD in world economics from Financial University, Moscow and Master’s in European Business from ESCP Europe. He is also a Financial Risk Manager.

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