EquinixMANAGEMENT TEAM: Regional Leadership
Europe
Guy de Rohan Willner – President, Equinix Europe
Guy has over 15 years' experience of leadership in high-tech companies. In 1998 he co-founded IXEurope - today Equinix Europe - a market leader in high-end datacenter services. Willner raised approximately $200 million in during the build-up of the company as revenues grew over 600% in the first 3 years. IXEurope officially became the UK's fastest growing tech company in 2002 according to the UK’s Sunday Times Tech Track league table, and Willner received personal recognition as Semi-Finalist in the UK’s Entrepreneur of the Year (2003). In 2006 IXEurope received the Queens Award for Enterprise in recognition of its fast growth and establishment across Europe.
Prior to co-founding IXEurope, Willner worked for Vivendi Group between 1992 and 1998 both in the UK and in Hungary. Prior to 1992 Mr Willner began his career with Philips NV in Paris working in Compact Disc Interactive, Smart Card and telematics technologies. Willner speaks French and German (and a little Hungarian) and holds a BSc Hons Engineering at Oxford Brookes University.
Christophe de Buchet – Chief Operating Officer, Equinix Europe
Christophe de Buchet has 15 years general management experience in international IT markets. In 1991 he founded VoiceQuest a specialist distributor of speech recognition, networking, memory and storage devices in the UK. In 1992 VoiceQuest was acquired by Austin Ventures-funded TechWorks Inc, headquartered in Texas. Christophe became European Vice-President of TechWorks and went on to establish pan-European sales and procurement channels, and a manufacturing and logistics centre in Ireland. In 1998, TechWorks Inc was acquired by Melco Inc, a manufacturer of computer peripherals listed on the first sections of the Tokyo and Nagoya stock exchanges. Christophe stayed as European Vice-President until he left to co-found Equinix with Guy Willner in 1999. Christophe holds a business degree from the ESSEC business school in France.
Russell Poole – General Manager, United Kingdom
Russell joined as UK general manager in April 2000, bringing with him nine years of experience in the UK telecommunications and internet industries.
From 1998 to 2000 Russell was a director of MessageNet Ltd - an internet security and messaging security provider. Responsible for sales and operations, he also led the development of e:)scan - Europe’s first e-mail virus and content control service. In October 1999 MessageNet was acquired by Articon-Integralis AG.Between 1993 and 1998, Russell was the national sales manager for General Telecom - the business telecoms division of General Cable Plc. During this time he grew the business from four sales people and £3m annual revenue to 35 sales people in three locations and £25m annual revenue.
Russell attended Nottingham University, where he read production engineering. Following twelve months travelling, he commenced his managerial career at Coca-Cola and Schweppes where he enjoyed a successful career as a national account manager.
Frits van der Graaff – General Manager, Switzerland
Frits van der Graaff's role started when the company acquired its first Zurich datacenter. Originally acting as Swiss Sales Manager, Frits is now responsible for the three higly specified datacenters in Zurich and Geneva. He also supervises the operation of the TIX™ the largest Internet exchange in Switzerland, based in Zurich, which, combined with the CiXP (co-managed with CERN in Geneva), carries over 90% of peered Internet traffic in Switzerland.
Prior to working with Equinix, Frits held the position of Project Manager with KLM Royal Dutch Airlines in which time his extensive portfolio included the build out of a 29,000 sqm KLM Freight Building and design of a 7-story office building. During his time at at KLM he designed and managed many operation oriented projects and supported the development of the new terminal of Schiphol Airport. Other positions that Frits has held include; Head of Development & Planning for Desenco - responsible for project and facilities management and Senior Manager for Rietmeyer.
Harro Beusker – General Manager, Germany
Harro joined as executive VP Operations and Rollout in September 2000, where during 2001 and 2002 he managed the expansion and further development of Equinix into 8 datacenter sites in 4 countires across Europe. From December 2002, Harro was appointed General Manager for Equinix Germany, where he has grown the business significantly, adding a second datacentre in Frankfurt and acquiring a leading German business continuity company in 2005.
After his study in business economics and managerial informatics at Tilburg University in the Netherlands, Harro built up more than 15 years of experience in the Telecommunications and ICT industry. He had his own ICT company, worked as ICT manager in the UK and Germany, and joined the dutch telecommunications company KPN in 1990, moving through a number of IT management positions during his 9-year carreer at the company.
In 1999 Harro joined InterXion as COO, where he played a crucial role in the expansion from 2 to 12 datacenters in 1999/2000. Also Harro was part of 2 funding rounds, the latter of €100M, beginning of 2000.
In 2000 Harro founded his own interim-management and consultancy company, specializing in the support of Internet startups. Ao. he managed a project to set up an e-market for Philips, the leading dutch electronics company. From May 2000 he was interim-CEO/COO for Intelisite, a datacenter company with datacenters in Frankfurt and Zurich, founded by JP Morgan and First Union Capital.
Michel Brignano – General Manager, France
Michel Brignano joined on the 1 January 2007, bringing expertise from a range of commercial technology roles. His previous role was at Telecity where he was the Country Manager for over five years, responsible for strategy and market solutions for the French territory. Prior to this position he had a number of commercial roles before working at DELL Computers between 1993 – 1997 as Chief of Sales before joining UUNET as a Sales Director from 1997 – 2001, initially working for the France business unit and then operating across South of Europe.
Asia-Pacific
Samuel Lee – President, Equinix Asia-Pacific
As President, Equinix Asia-Pacific, Mr. Samuel Lee holds overall responsibility for all Equinix operations in the Asia-Pacific region, including Internet Business Exchange™ (IBX®) centers in Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore and Sydney. Mr. Lee brings a wealth of experience in telecom and Internet services as well as expertise in startup operations.
Most recently, Mr. Lee was Vice President of Equinix Asia-Pacific. Under his tenure, the Hong Kong IBX became an EBITDA (defined as income or loss from operations before depreciation, amortization, accretion, stock-based compensation expense and restructuring charges) and cash flow positive operation. Lee also successfully led the Equinix Hong Kong team in building a strong position for Equinix in providing business continuity and disaster recovery services for the financial services industry in Hong Kong.
Prior to joining Equinix in 2000, Lee served as managing director of Pacific Gateway Exchange (PGE), a provider of wholesale and retail long distance, Internet, and bandwidth services. In this position, he spearheaded the company’s expansion into the Hong Kong market, focusing on carrier services, such as voice wholesale, bilateral relationships, capacity and back haul sales, and Internet business services, including transit, colocation, and content delivery services.
Prior to PGE, Mr. Lee founded Telekom Consulting Limited, a consulting firm offering strategic assistance to network providers in the deregulated telecommunications market in Hong Kong and Asia. Lee also held management positions at Teleglobe International, Intel and Sprint.
Mr. Lee holds a B.A. from City University of Hong Kong.
Doug Oates – Vice President of Sales, Equinix Asia-Pacific
Doug Oates has over 30 years experience in the Telecommunications industry both in Australia and South Africa.
Mr. Oates joined Equinix in May 2000 as the Managing Director for Australia. In his current role as Vice President of Sales, Asia Pacific, Mr. Oates will develop the sales strategies for the region while working closely with the Asia Pacific managing directors on regional and international deals.
Previously Carrier Services Director of Pacific Gateway Exchange, he helped establish the company’s wholesale international telephone operations in Australia. This included negotiating interconnect facilities with carriers, as well as building the company’s business base.
Prior to this, he was General Manager – Sales for Global One. Over a six year period, he managed the company’s sales growth from start-up.
Mr. Oates holds a Diploma in Telecommunications.
David Wilkinson – Managing Director, Equinix Japan
David Wilkinson, Managing Director of Equinix Japan, joined Equinix in July of 2002.
Mr. Wilkinson has spent more than 10 years living and working in Japan and has primarily focused his career on the development of business in the Japan market for foreign companies and helping Japanese companies introduce foreign technologies and services to the Japanese market.
Prior to joining Equinix, David Wilkinson served as President of CCC Network Systems K.K. for four and half years. In this position, Mr. Wilkinson lead CCC’s entry into both the Japanese and Korean Markets, providing infrastructure services and server farm management solutions primarily to data centre operators, financial institutions and large corporate institutions.
Prior to taking up the position at CCC Network Systems, Mr. Wilkinson worked for the Fujitsu group for more than 10 years, both inside and outside of Japan. Most recently in Fujitsu, Mr. Wilkinson was Vice President of Business Development for ICL Japan (a wholly owned subsidiary of Fujitsu), who specialized in the introduction and promotion of European technologies into the Japanese market.
Mr. Wilkinson graduated from Glasgow University, United Kingdom with a First Class Honours Degree in Computing Science, Physics and Mathematics.
Darren Mann – Managing Director, Equinix Australia
Darren Mann joined Equinix in January 2001 has played an integral part in building the Equinix’s customer base in Sydney. Since 2006, Mr. Mann held the position of Sales Director where he was responsible for the performance of the local sales team. As Managing Director, Mr Mann has overall responsibility for Equinix’s business presence in the Australian market.
Prior to Equinix, Mr. Mann spent six years at IHS Australia as a member of the sales team, where he was responsible for selling online technical and regulatory database services to the University, Construction & Mining, and Defence industry sectors.
Previously, he spent six years in the retail sector, three of which in management positions. Mr. Mann has over 13 years of experience in the IT industry and 18 years of sales experience.
Clement Goh – Managing Director, Equinix Singapore
As the Managing Director for Singapore, Clement Goh will be responsible for the overall performance of the Singapore IBX centre. This includes increasing local and regional market share, profitability and operational efficiency.
Mr. Goh has held a number of key positions in global technology multi-national companies, and he has been instrumental in ensuring the rapid expansion of the companies that he has served in. He was previously Datastream’s Senior Sales & Marketing Director in Asia Pacific. Prior to Datastream, Mr. Goh was McDATA’s Field Program Director in Asia Pacific, where he drove business development in the region while strengthening relationships with technology giants EMC and Dell. Mr. Goh has also held leading positions at EMC Singapore, Oracle Systems Singapore and Agilent Technologies.
Mr. Goh holds a Bachelor of Engineering in Electrical & Electronics from the National University of Singapore.
Jonathan Leung – Managing Director, Equinix Hong Kong
Jonathan Leung has over 18 years of management experience in North Asia’s technology industry. Most recently, he was the Director of Business Strategy at ASTRI; a Hong Kong-based R&D firm where he was responsible for the negotiation and execution of technology licensing deals.
Prior to that, Mr. Leung was the Vice President of Sales at CPCNet where he managed 5 sales offices in Hong Kong and China.
In 1998, Mr. Leung co-founded NetTasking Inc., a network infrastructure management service provider in Asia-Pacific. He drove sales and marketing functions as well as built channel partner relationships. The company was acquired by a Singapore listed company in 2002.
Before that, he was General Manager with full P&L accountability at Asia Online, a leading first generation regional ISP. Mr. Leung had also held various sales management positions at IBM and Datacraft.
Mr. Leung holds an M.Sc. in Investment Management from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology; an M.B.A. from Chinese University of Hong Kong and First Class Honours Degree in Electronics Engineering from University of Hong Kong.
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