< PreviousMovers and Shakers ABB has acquired ASKI Energy of Austria, further expanding its digital energy management portfolio and accelerating the development of its ecosystem of digital energy services. ABB’s acquisition of ASKI Energy will enable it to bring to market new energy optimisation and control features and technologies. The deal will also drive the introduction of more advanced energy management solutions for smart grids, solar, electric vehicle charging, battery energy storage systems (BESS), and demand-side management. ASKI Energy’s solutions automate energy optimisation and control to help customers reduce energy costs. These complement ABB Ability Energy Manager, a market-leading digital solution to monitor and optimise energy consumption and CO2 footprint. The ABB Ability Energy Manager enables customers to achieve savings of up to 30% on utility bills and up to 30% on overall operational costs. Giampiero Frisio, President, ABB Smart Power, said: “Supporting organisations to meet their sustainability targets and reduce their energy costs is a key focus for ABB – and digital tools are key. With their Energy Controller hardware and innovative suite of software modules, ASKI Energy is the perfect choice for us as we support customers in their sustainability and energy management strategies. With this acquisition, we will increase our unique range of energy management solutions for organisations, with or without ABB hardware and the ABB Ability Energy Manager.” Franz Stabauer, CEO and co-founder of ASKI Energy, said: "We are pleased that ABB is investing in ASKI Energy, continuing the ASKI brand, integrating it into the ABB Smart Power family and keeping our team together in Zell am Moos, Austria. The ASKI Energy brand stands for tradition and innovation. We will continue to deliver the highest quality to our customers. We are very excited to become part of the ABB family as its reach into new markets will open up new customer bases and we are working together on new innovative functionalities. With the ongoing challenges of climate change and the need for sustainable electrification our combined expertise will help address the major challenges facing customers and society." ABB Acquires ASKI Energy From left ASKI Energy Managing Directors Stefan Kleinhans, Franz Stabauer (founder) and Johann Grabner (founder) Pulsant Appoints New Chief Operating Officer Pulsant has appointed Ben Cranham as its new Chief Operating Officer (COO). Cranham has extensive operational and commercial leadership experience right across the technology sector. In his new role he will focus on ensuring Pulsant delivers excellence for a fast- expanding client-base across Pulsant’s national network of 12 interconnected data centres, edge and hybrid cloud platforms. Welcoming this key strategic appointment, Pulsant CEO Rob Coupland said: “Ben has a fantastic wealth of experience allied to strong strategic, commercial and operational capabilities. I’m excited to see the fresh perspectives and renewed focus he will bring to what is a critical role, leading our operations and client services teams. Ensuring delivery of excellent service for our clients is a key pillar of our strategy.” Cranham, who has two decades of experience in technology and telecoms, comes to Pulsant with a long list of accomplishments to his name. As COO at MTI Technology Group – a position he held from 2017 until the present – he led service delivery, internal operations, commercial and legal functions. He is highly skilled in many areas of infrastructure and telecoms, including transformational change programmes and technical service delivery. In his earlier career, his impressive track record includes leadership roles with Capita IT Enterprise Services and Trustmarque Solutions. “It’s an exciting time to be joining Pulsant,” said Cranham. “I’ll be using all my experience and understanding of the IT sector to ensure excellence is embedded in everything Pulsant does across the entire network of data centres providing market- leading colocation, cloud and networking services. Only by ensuring the highest levels of service, flexibility, resilience and security, can we help organisations embrace the digital future, achieve their goals and fulfil their potential.” The appointment follows a series of strategic investments in Pulsant’s edge platform, including the acquisition of two data centres in Manchester and Reading and the launch of Pulsant Cloud. www.networkseuropemagazine.com MOVERS AND SHAKERS 80Gigamon Announces Jon Kane as Channel & Alliances Director EMEA Gigamon has welcomed Jon Kane as Channel & Alliances Director EMEA. The appointment is a key strategic hire as the organisation continues to help channel partners enhance customers’ security posture with deep observability and solutions that will accelerate digital transformation initiatives, generate ROI, and provide solution flexibility and visibility enhancements. Kane joins Gigamon following 20+ years working the channel in cybersecurity, including roles at FireEye and VMWare. As Channel & Alliances Director for EMEA, his immediate focus will be on supporting partner enablement across the region, bolstering the Gigamon channel team and educating the channel on the benefits and return on investment for cloud and network security. PowerX Technology Ltd Appoints Andrew Schafer as CEO to Accelerate Growth PowerX has taken the next planned step in its exciting growth journey. The appointment of Andrew Schafer as CEO combines strong Software-as-a-Service experience with the deep industry knowledge of founder, Justin Head, and the PowerX team, to expand their innovative solutions and market penetration. The telecoms industry is seeing an unprecedented demand for increased data bandwidth while facing rising energy costs, emission reduction targets, rural coverage goals and the need for improved asset performance with reduced maintenance spend. PowerX’s advanced SaaS functionality addresses these challenges to deliver optimised performance of tower infrastructure assets. With PowerX’s strong market momentum and recent contract wins, Andrew’s focus will be on successful delivery of long-term contracts as well as driving accelerated growth in response to the demand for PowerX’s suite of cutting-edge solutions. Schafer joins PowerX Technology with over 12 years’ experience at Verisae and Accruent where he successfully scaled SaaS solutions across multiple industries and geographies, while leveraging his strong domain knowledge in physical asset management, energy management and sustainability. Prior to that, Andrew held senior business advisory and strategy consulting roles at PwC and IBM. Schafer said: “I’m delighted to be joining the extraordinary PowerX team at such an exciting point in its journey. PowerX’s market-leading AI solution is delivering a step change in the resilience, efficiency and sustainability of cell towers. I look forward to working closely with Justin and the team to lead PowerX in the next stage of its evolution as it scales to become the global platform of choice for tower owners and operators.” Justin Head, Founder and Executive Vice Chairman, PowerX said: “I’m excited to welcome Andrew to PowerX. His domain knowledge and breadth of SaaS experience is a huge asset as we scale the business. Andrew’s appointment as CEO allows me, as Executive Vice Chairman, to focus on product innovation, global market adoption and customer success, which I am extremely passionate about.” Telehouse Europe Appoints New Managing Director Telehouse Europe, has strengthened its executive leadership team further by appointing a new Managing Director. Previously holding the role of Deputy Managing Director at the company, Takayo Takamuro has recently been promoted to the role of MD with full responsibility for the leadership and development of Telehouse Europe. Takamuro will play a key role in driving innovation and improving customer experience across the business. She will continue to be based in London, the European headquarters for Telehouse. Takamuro has over 25 years’ experience in the data centre industry, joining Telehouse in 2021 from parent company KDDI, a Japanese telecommunications provider. She started her career in the telecoms industry in 1995, before moving on to lead global sales and business development for major manufacturers and finance companies. As MD, she brings a wealth of industry experience and excellent strategic skills to Telehouse, while also leading initiatives including staff welfare, client satisfaction, and the company’s ongoing sustainability efforts. Takamuro takes her new role at a key point in the growth of Telehouse. With the launch of its largest facility, Telehouse South, in London Docklands in the spring, the provider has seen unprecedented levels of demand from customers seeking the connectivity, scalability and security of Telehouse’s ecosystem. Already Europe's most connected data centre campus, the new data centre is the company’s fifth Docklands based data centre and supports the growing need for resilient colocation services as well as access to leading cloud players and managed services. Vertiv Aligns EMEA Sales Organisation to Enhance Customer Experience Vertiv has announced the evolution of its Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) sales teams to better serve expanding key markets and support future growth. The newly formed sales regions, in parallel with stronger account management focus, will help support the growing cloud and colocation, telecom and edge markets, while increasing synergies and best practices across teams. “Our customers are front and centre of what we do, meaning that our organisation must evolve to stay ahead in such a dynamic market,” said Peter Lambrecht, VP sales for Vertiv in EMEA. “The key objective is to make it easier for our customers to do business with us, making sure that they can rely on industry experts to support their specific needs. We are tailoring the organisation to add value to our customers’ business models.” Service teams will now be working more closely with sales, meaning that customers can expect closer lifecycle support for their equipment and even more emphasis on total cost of ownership (TCO). The strategy will also help accelerate growth and strengthen Vertiv’s market leadership by bolstering key account support and enabling cross-selling, while supporting the IT distribution channel to further enhance its efforts. Teams in the UK, Ireland, Denmark, Sweden and Norway are now led by Alex Brew. Daniel Breum is Regional Director for Central Western Europe. Jean- Pierre Tournemaine is Regional Director for Southern Europe. In Central Eastern Europe, the leadership of Igor Grdic has been confirmed while Turkey, Central Asia and Middle East are now led by Tassos Peppas. MOVERS AND SHAKERS www.networkseuropemagazine.comwww.networkseuropemagazine.com 81NETWORKS EUROPE reaches a readership of 26,000 network infrastructure professionals throughout Europe, landing on the desks of data centre managers, facilities managers, CIOs, CTOs, ICT directors, consultants, network managers, integrators and many others in the data centre industry. NETWORKS EUROPE features editorial contributions from worldwide industry figureheads, ensuring that it's the world's best publication for information on all aspects of this constantly evolving industry. NETWORKS EUROPE The magazine for network and data centre professionals If you would like to contribute a feature article, please contact the editor, Laura Vallis at editor@networkseuropemagazine.com If you would like to advertise in any of the upcoming issues please contact sales@networkseuropemagazine.com 2023 EDITORIAL PROGRAMME JANUARY / FEBRUARY Copy deadline - 16th January • Data Centre Trends of Tomorrow • Racks and Enclosures • Colocation datacentres MARCH / APRIL Copy deadline - 6th March • Sustainability and Zero Carbon • Data Recovery/Backup • Modular Data Centres MAY / JUNE Copy deadline - 8th May • Hybrid Data Centres • Data Centre Providers/ Supply Chain • Maintenance JULY / AUGUST Copy deadline - 10th July • Market Direction • Micro Data Centres • People/Training and Development SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER Copy deadline - 11th September • Remote Data Centre • Smart Buildings/ Modernisation • Cybersecurity NOVEMBER / DECEMBER Copy deadline - 6th November • Power Management • Cabling and Connectivity • CoolingNext >