Real estate firm Goodman Group has appointed Kraig Knight to lead its data center efforts.
The company has appointed Knight as EVP of data center operations, reporting directly to CEO Greg Goodman.
Based in the US, Knight will drive the design, development, and deployment of Goodman’s operational data center offering globally – responsible for ‘executing a flexible operational model’ to serve data center customers.
CEO Goodman said: “Kraig’s expertise across data center design, construction, and operations will see him build out the operational capabilities of the data center business in line with developing our 5GW global power bank."
Most recently, Knight was Microsoft’s general manager of data center central operations, responsible for overseeing the company's central operations across the Americas, EMEA, and APAC regions. Prior to his more than six and a half years at Microsoft, Knight held roles at NTT, Savvis, Latisys, Liebert, and Capitol Power Group.
Knight added: “Joining Goodman at this point in its data center growth story is a rare opportunity to complement a team experienced in the development of complex infrastructure. By pairing our demonstrated capacity delivery with operational expertise, we’ll be able to improve speed-to-market for customers and provide them with the operational flexibility they require to meet their own data center business growth goals.”
Traditionally focused on logistics and industrial real estate, Goodman has been developing data centers since 2005 and has been increasing its focus on digital infrastructure in recent years.
The company claims to have a global power bank of 5GW across 13 cities, of which 2.6GW is secured and 2.4GW is in the “advanced stages” of procurement. It has projects in operation or development across Hong Kong, Australia, Germany, the US, and Japan.
Earlier this year, the company announced plans to raise AU$4 billion (US$2.5bn), which will partly be used to fuel its data center build-out.
In a previous earnings presentation, Goodman noted the opportunity to create a new operating company for data centers that could “create significant enterprise value,” and Knight’s appointment is part of a move towards becoming a data center operating company.
DCD understands Knight’s role is still inside Goodman Group, and he will not be heading a separate company.
He will be focused on delivering the operational capacity customers require; this could vary from providing the powered shell only, managing critical environment operations such as power and cooling while customers run IT operations, all the way up to providing a full service with customers just adding the racks.
