We ‘Deep Dive’ with Mitch Fonseca, Vice President Product and Data Center Strategy, Cyxtera Technologies.
Cyxtera Technologies combines a worldwide footprint of 50+ best-in-class data centres with a portfolio of modern, cloud and hybrid-ready security and analytics offerings – providing more than 3,500 enterprises, government agencies and service providers an integrated, secure and cyber-resilient infrastructure platform for critical applications and systems
What would you describe as your most memorable achievement in the data centre industry?
My most memorable achievement was very recent. When Cyxtera was created in May 2017 after the acquisition of CenturyLink’s retail colocation business and several cybersecurity software companies, we had to standardise the data centres and stand up our own operating systems.
Originally, our plan was to accomplish this over 24 months. Due to heroic efforts from our employees, we were able to transition onto our own systems and standardise our entire product portfolio in 15 months. This has helped to significantly speed up our company’s development and growth.
What first made you think of a career in technology/data centres?
I have always found technology fascinating and had originally set out to become a coder, studying computer science and learning many different coding languages. As I got closer to graduating, I realised that there was more to technology than coding. I also had some friends that had already started working in the data centre industry, so I decided to give it a shot. I have not looked back since.
What style of management philosophy do you employ with your current position?
I strive to manage my team as an actual team of individuals who are all reliant on each other to achieve success. No one on my team, including myself, can achieve success without the assistance of other members on my team. I encourage the team to work together as much as possible and avoid the development of silos at all cost. This encourages the team to act more like a family than a traditional hierarchy.
What do you think is the current hot talking point within the data centre space?
A few hot talking points include privacy and data sovereignty changes within the European landscape and data centre security for all the connected devices (i.e. cameras, temp/humidity sensor, etc.)
How do you deal with stress and unwind outside the office?
I like to spend a lot of time with my family. Whether it is taking the kids to the park to play or practice sports or hanging out at our house and going to the pool.
What do you currently identify as the major areas of investment in your industry?
I believe the international markets hold the greatest opportunity for investment within the data centre industry. Particularly the Asian and Latin American markets.
What are the region-specific challenges you encounter in your role?
The focus of my role over the last 12 months has really focused on standardising our business, modernising our systems, developing a global data centre platform and keeping the business growing through our transition.
As we transition into steady state operation, we will begin to focus more on the local data centre markets and how to become more efficient and success within each market while continuing to offer our customers a standardised and global data centre platform.
What changes to your job role have you seen in the last year and how do you see these developing in the next 12 months?
Moving forward, we will focus more on how to become more efficient and successful in each local data centre market while continuing to offer our customers a standardised and global data centre platform.
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