EMEA Business Leader of the Year Guy Willner has a passion for data centers. The ‘geek’ in him loves the technology; the ‘pioneer’ the challenge; and the ‘leader’ the life lessons that come creating a successful company. Having started IXEurope in 1999 with Christophe de Buchet (which began in London and grew to 14 data centers across the continent before being sold to Equinix for £254m in 2007), IXcellerate (which has one data center in Moscow), and setting up the IDC-G alliance (consisting of a group of operators from emerging markets around the world), Willner has carved out his own path in the industry, crossing a number of territories.

His career started at Vivendi, the French multinational telecommunications company, in Hungary, where he worked in engineering software following a stint in a software lab with Phillips creating smart card readers and “early internet stuff”.

Willner says that at the time data centers ran mostly as silos. “I thought, in November 1997, that there is only one big Telehouse facility in London but there should be two – one in West London as well – because maybe in five years Goldman Sachs will be doing a big exchange deal and its data center there could go down. At that time it was all dial-in access stuff, not much was going on around the Internet,” Willner says.

Willner explained his idea to Vivendi but the company was in the process of being sold. “I thought I could either get a job or try to build a business, so I built a data center. The Internet bubble was coming up – it was 1998 and people were excited.”

With the backing of private equity firm Milestone Capital, Willner went into business and in 1999 received £10m for the first round of funding for IXEurope – “one of the highest first rounds in Europe at the time for a startup”. This is when Willner learned to love the unknown. The company raised an additional £42m in Series B in 2000, tried to float in London, then failed as the internet bubble burst.

Survival rounds pushed the company through, and in April 2006 it finally floated and sold in July 2007, with Equinix taking ownership of 14 facilities in London, Frankfurt, Zurich, Munich, Paris, Dusseldorf and Geneva. “We were actually only quoted for 14 months, and our share price went up by more than six times. Our lowest price was 22 pence, and on the day we sold we were about £1.40,” Willner says.

A new challenge
Following IXEurope, Willner tried to change his tune and invested in a number of new areas. “But I realized I was pretty useless at anything but data centers.” So, in 2008, when approached by the founder of Teraco Data Environments in South Africa, Willner became an investor and joined the board. “That was fantastic. Suddenly I realized I had lots of competence to add to the model.”

He then started to look at other investment opportunities, which led him to Cliff Gauntlett, former SVP at Russian telco Golden Telecom, who was investigating possibilities in Moscow. IXcellerate, after three years of planning, locating sites and securing power, opened an enterprise-grade colocation facility on a 15,741 sq m campus in Moscow in 2012.

“The market today is too focused on Western Europe and the US; I think this is because it is easy. You don’t have to learn a new language, new culture or operate in a riskier environment. I am sure there is a component of demand in London, Amsterdam or Frankfurt that should be sitting in Johannesburg or Beijing,” Willner says.

Willner and Gauntlett say plans for IXcellerate’s expansion are being made, but unlike IXEurope, initial expansion will come from within the country. “When I sold my business to Equinix we were building London 5. So we could build Moscow 1, 2, 3 and 4 such is the demand,” he says.

Willner attributes his success to being in the right place at the right time, with the right skills, having the nerve to take risks and the will to embrace a challenge. “My own operation today is really me trying to prove I can still do it. I chose Moscow because it is exciting, plus there is a big financial markets presence with Micex and RTS,” Willner says.

He admits, however, that without the right tools, risk can be dangerous, and that support in this industry is crucial.

Willner started the IDC-G group in 2011, which is made up of carefully selected data center operators from less well-represented countries outside the Western European and US markets. It is a place where they can come together to network, enhance competition, pool purchasing initiatives to derive better value and share lessons on best practice. The group has 18 members from countries including Ecuador to Mauritius and Moscow that are part of a “loose” partnership.

“We are doing some work on an exchange program, so we can take a technician from one data center and get them to another, say, between Croatia and Hungary,” Willner says. “IDC-G raises the bar, because it takes these data center companies and puts them on a world stage. It allows them to talk to each other and compares how they are doing – and it creates more opportunities.”

Willner is now working on a new data center project in Kenya.

The annual DatacenterDynamics Awards for EMEA took place in December last year. You can see a complete list of winners on our Awards page here.

Throughout the year, FOCUS online and the magazine will cover in more depth each award winner, project and innovation. You can see the coverage first in our digital editions. For subscriptions to FOCUS, click here.