Volta Data Centres continue to grow

Volta Data Centres, developer and operator of central London’s newest purpose-designed, carrier-neutral data centre, announces the appointment of John Speers, as Facilities Manager to support the operational plans of the data centre and strengthen the team as the company grows. In this role, John will be responsible for the overall management of the data centre, overseeing the critical data infrastructure and monitoring energy efficiency.

John brings a wealth of critical operations experience to Volta, having been involved with critical engineering for more than 20 years and working for major IT infrastructure network operators, data centres and broadcast companies. Prior to his appointment with Volta, John was the Gateway Manager for Level 3 Communications and Main Media Centre Energy Manager for the Press centre at the 2012 London Olympics. At the request of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) John oversaw more than 1 million square foot of space, designed the mission critical network, procured contractors and managed operations during the three months of the games.

Whilst at Level 3 Communications Speers managed 500,000 square feet of data over three sites and was responsible for ensuring 100% uptime.

John, who was also involved in the construction of the Channel Tunnel, comments, “Volta Data Centres’ Great Sutton Street site is an outstanding facility. I see the company as being well equipped to become the go-to-data centre location for London’s businesses so I decided to join for a new challenge in a fresh environment. I’m looking forward to bringing my data critical infrastructure skillset and facilities management experience to Volta, as the technology demands on today’s businesses see many assessing their cloud needs and carefully considering where their cloud’s ‘home’ should be.”

In response to the energy savings data centres are looking to make, Volta recently developed row-based cooling systems to provide cooling to high density racks and improve energy efficiency. John is tasked with managing this row-based cooling system and ensuring Volta remains the most efficient, agile and flexible data centre for its customers ever-changing requirements.

Matthew Dent, CEO of Volta, concludes, “We are pleased to be welcoming John into the Volta team. His previous success in facilities management and his technical engineering expertise makes him a real asset to our company. His critical data infrastructure experience will be of vital importance to us as we continue to grow. I am confident John will help us to establish Volta Data Centres as a leader in secure, flexible and scalable IT and hosting data centre for London companies, and look forward to developing our proposition further with his expertise.”