Willner has more than 15 years of senior leadership experience in high-tech companies and founded UK-based colocation provider IXEurope in 1998, which grew into a 14 large-scale data center strong company operating in four countries.
(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — South Africa’s first provider of vendor-neutral data centers, Teraco Data Environments (www.teraco.co.za), has appointed to its board industry veteran Guy Willner, who was co-founder and chief executive officer of IXEurope.
According to the Tuesday announcement, Guy Willner also invested in the company alongside leading international and local shareholders including British industrialist Sir Peter Michael and Black-owned South African private equity group Treacle Private Equity (www.treacle.co.za).
“I’m excited to be involved with Teraco. South Africa’s telecoms is now at a similar stage of liberalisation as Europe was when we started IXEurope,” Willner said in a statement. “Carriers and service providers will increasingly see the value of a neutral point to interconnect their networks and do business. The time is now right to create a real home for the Internet in South Africa and I believe the Teraco management have addressed the⨠opportunity in the right way.”
Willner has more than 15 years of senior leadership experience in high-tech companies. He founded UK-based colocation provider IXEurope in 1998, which grew into a 14 large-scale data center strong company operating in four countries and was publicly listed on the London Stock Exchange.
Global network-neutral data centers operator and Internet exchange services provider Equinix (www.equinix.com) acquired IXEurope in 2007 for £270.1 million. Willner currently serves in a non-executive role as Equinix Europe president.
Teraco chairman Andrew Tuckey said Guy’s investment in the company has already made a major contribution to Teraco and his board membership will further help the fledgling company. “His experience in the sector and in building and growing successful companies will be of enormous value to Teraco as our business accelerates, and as we become the yardstick in South Africa for vendor neutral data environments.”
Willner said the Teraco team shows a lot of promise competent, focused on being the highest quality player in the market and is already well on track to building a very successful business. “I look forward to working closely with the team on this exciting project,” he said.
Coinciding with the relaxation of national telecommunications regulations in November 2008, Teraco opened a neutral data center in Cape Town, making it the first of its kind in the country and tapping a growing market of corporations, ISPs and IT service providers that are now allowed to self-provision their data for the first time ever in South Africa.
