Kao Data Announces Paul Finch as Interim CEO as it Enters Next Phase of Data Centre Expansion at its North East London Campus

LONDON, Sept. 19, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Kao Data, the home of innovation and the UK's leading entrant to the wholesale colocation data centre market, has announced that Paul Finch is to lead the company as interim CEO through the expansion phase of the 43.5MVA campus development. The announcement is made as incumbent, Jan Daan Luycks stands down from the company based on his decision to return home to the Netherlands.

Paul Finch has 30 years of progressive experience in the industry, including over a decade at senior management level, focussed on data centres, technical real estate and complex engineering infrastructure. Paul was the first person recruited to the senior management team at Kao Data, and this new appointment demonstrates the company's commitment to the next phase of its wholesale data centre development.

David Bloom, Partner at investors, Goldacre said, "Paul Finch has successfully led the strategic operations and platform delivery function, resulting in Kao Data's entry into the London wholesale multi-tenant data centre (MTDC) market. The breadth and depth of his technical expertise combined with his operational knowledge has been evidenced by the outstanding performance outcomes achieved thus far for our customers and investors alike. It is evident that Paul and his highly experienced senior technical team provide the highest quality resources based on tailored customer requirements. He is the perfect appointment to take Kao Data through this important next phase and has the full support of the Board. The Board would like to take the opportunity to wish Jan Daan Luycks all the best as he returns to the Netherlands and thank him for his tremendous contributions in completing the first chapter of the Kao Data story."

Paul Finch stated, "I'm proud to have the opportunity to lead Kao Data through this interim period and build on the solid foundations created. The Board have demonstrated their belief in me to not only ensure the digital infrastructure execution cycle continues seamlessly, but also that the broader business strategy aligns with ever changing market dynamics and evolving technologies. Kao Data is well set to deliver a strong customer advantage and continued success in a competitive and maturing market."

Under the operational leadership of Paul Finch, Kao Data has recently made headlines with two prestigious industry awards: Excellence in Corporate Social Responsibility at the Datacloud Global Awards 2019, and Real Estate Deal of the Year for Goldacre Noe and Legal and General Capital at the Finvest Awards. Both events took place in Monaco in June this year.

About Paul Finch

Paul Finch is Interim CEO and COO at Kao Data, providing strategic direction, innovation and leadership in the creation and delivery of the digital infrastructure platform for today's Cloud and Edge computing requirements. Initially joining the team as CTO, he subsequently took on broader responsibilities as COO, successfully bringing Kao Data Campus (+£230m, 43.5MVA) to the London multi-tenant data centre market in 2018.

Named as one of the Data Economy 50 "The Top Influencers in Data Centres, Cloud and Data," Paul is a highly respected technical thought leader, skilled in data centre product strategy, platform delivery, strategic operations and sales enablement. He maintains an acute focus on how the evolution of technology together with increasing end-user expectations are influencing the future shape of the data centre landscape, as well as connectivity product-sets and services.

During his 30 year career, Paul has played key roles at Fortune 500 corporations and publicly traded REIT's including CBRE (NYSE:CBG) and Digital Realty Trust (NYSE:DLR), as well as embryonic start-ups and scale-ups. In total, he has overseen the creation and execution of global developments exceeding £1.0bn in capital deployment and supporting over 200MW of technical space.

Under his operational leadership Kao Data made headlines with two prestigious industry awards: Excellence in Corporate Social Responsibility at the Datacloud Global Awards and Real Estate Deal of the Year for Goldacre Noe and Legal and General Capital at the Finvest Awards, Monaco, 2019.

He has also been engaged at a policy level representing the data centre industry, having made formal representation in Europe and North America on draft data centre policy, standards and regulations.

Paul Finch's many credentials include: Chartered Engineer and Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Member of the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air-conditioning Engineers, Voting Executive Committee Member of ASHRAE Technical Committee 9.9 (TC9.9) - Mission Critical Facilities, Data Centres, Technology Spaces and Electronic Equipment (2014-2018), TC9.9 Sub-Committee Marketing Chair (2018 - Present), TechUK Technical Committee Member, EUDCA Technical Committee Member.

He holds a BSc (Hons) in Building Services Engineering from London South Bank University, PgDip in Engineering Management from Brunel University and has completed the General Management Programme at the University of Cambridge, Judge Business School.

About Kao Data 

Situated in the London-Stansted-Cambridge technology corridor, the £200m+ Kao Data Campus provides around 150,000 sq. ft technical space and 35MW power for IT equipment. The completed site will comprise four 8.8MW data centres, providing a customer product set from a Technology Pod, Technology Cell, Technology Suite and complete Technology Building, tailored to meet the demands of conventional ITE infrastructure, through to specialist HPC and Edge at Scale deployments.

Through technical leadership Kao Data continues to drive innovation increasing reliability supporting 100% availability at reduced total cost of operations. Dynamic load tracking at the campus site ensures high energy-efficiency with ultra-low PUE <1.2, even at 20% ITE utilisation. The company has made the added commitment to 100% renewable energy to power its data centres.

Served by a dedicated and redundant 43,5MVA power supply, the quality of the design, construction and systems installation has helped Kao Data achieve BREEAM excellent certification. The technical capability, hyper-connectivity strategy and secure data resilience of the Kao Data Campus makes it ideally placed to support both cloud and hybrid-cloud solutions for a range of enterprise businesses, including financial services, life sciences, defence and the health sector.

For more details, please visit www.kaodata.com

SOURCE Kao Data