Africa Data Centres CEO Tesh Durvasula on how they became an industry leader

Published: June 6, 2023, 12:12 p.m.

In this What’s Next interview, Africa Data Centres CEO Tesh Durvasula meets with Aki Anastasiou to discuss the company’s journey to becoming an industry leader in the data centre and hosting industry. Durvasula is an experienced CEO who specialises in digital infrastructure. He served as the Vice President of the Internet Services Division at AboveNet Communications from 1997 until 2002 – when he co-founded NYC Connect. Serving as NYC Connect COO for five years, Durvasula then joined Telx as its Chief Marketing and Business Officer, before taking on the same role at Quality Technology Services (QTS). Durvasula then moved to CyrusOne in 2012, where he worked for 10 years as the company’s CCO. During this time, he also was appointed as President for CyrusOne Europe in 2018, and President and CEO of CyrusOne in 2020. Durvasula was responsible for driving sales growth and leading significant acquisitions worth over $1 billion while in the role, and grew CyrusOne’s annual revenue from $221 million to $1 billion. He was appointed as the CEO of Africa Data Centres at the beginning of 2022 and has demonstrated excellent leadership and generated exceptional value for the company. Durvasula begins the interview by talking about Africa Data Centres’ journey to becoming a leading data centre provider in Africa. He discusses the biggest challenges along this journey and explains how Africa’s data centre industry compares to the rest of the world.