iXAfrica Announces Appointment of New Member to its Board of Directors
Nairobi, Kenya, 9 March 2023 – iXAfrica Data Centre Limited (“iXAfrica”, or the “Company”) , a leading developer and operator of hyperscale, AI-ready data centres in East Africa is pleased to announce the appointment of William Barney (“Bill”) to its Board of Directors. Bill has had a long and successful career within the digital infrastructure sector globally and is currently Chairman of the Pacific Telecoms Council (“PTC”), a global membership organization promoting the advancement of information and communication technologies in the Pacific region, and well-known for its annual conference. Bill brings a wealth of experience to the Board of IXAfrica as the Company progresses on its business strategy and advances on the development of its Nairobi campus.
Bill is the Founder and Chairman of Asian Century Equity, an emerging markets private capital technology investor, Founder of Turbidite, an emerging markets data centre investment platform focused initially on Southeast Asia, and serves on the Board of CtrlS, an Indian hyper-scale data centre platform. Prior to becoming an investor and founder of digital infrastructure platforms, Bill was an award-winning CEO across Asia. He has built and managed teams that consistently achieved industry leading top-line and profitability growth rates. He served six years as Chairman and CEO of Reliance/Global Cloud Xchange, and earlier ten years as CEO of Pacnet, an Asian submarine cable company. He was previously Asia Pacific President at MCI Worldcom, VP of AMEA at Global One and held leadership roles at AT&T.
Guy Willner, Chairman of iXAfrica said, “Following the investment from Helios Investment Partners (“Helios”) announced earlier this year, we are pleased to have Bill join our Board to provide his expertise as we construct our cloud-ready facility to deliver high quality data center solutions, serving both international and local data center requirements. This new facility will be a major milestone for IXAfrica as we continue to build our position as the digital transformation hub of East Africa.”
Tosin Awoyinka, Senior Vice President at Helios added, “We are delighted to welcome Bill to the growing team at IXAfrica. We see solid growth potential and compelling investment dynamics in the African data center sector as we continue to grow our digital infrastructure franchise across the continent.”
Bill Barney said, “I look forward to working with the iXAfrica and Helios teams to support the delivery of their next generation hyperscale data center in Nairobi. Africa is rapidly becoming an important growth hub and strategically positioned to play an even more significant role in the global digital ecosystem.”
Prompted by soaring demand for Kenyan internet connectivity from a young and fast-growing population, iXAfrica is in the process of building a 17,300 square meter data center campus in Nairobi. Upon full build-out of the facility, the Company will establish a leading position in Kenya, delivering over 20MW of much-needed, hyperscale capacity to the market.