Smith will enter the role in December 2018, reporting directly to chief financial officer Andrew Power and will be responsible for overseeing all the company’s operations in the Asia-Pacific region.
"We are excited to welcome Mark Smith to the Digital Realty team," said Power. "Mark has demonstrated significant business leadership in the Asia Pacific region, including spearheading prominent companies' cloud services growth. Given his deep institutional expertise, we expect Mark will be instrumental in driving our key strategic initiatives in this critical region."
To the role, Smith brings extensive industry experience and over two decades of experience in Asia, having most recently served as managing director, Asia at Zettagrid. Prior to this Smith served as managing director of cloud services, Asia-Pacific and Japan at VMware where he was responsible for managing the cloud services business, including a network of over 600 service providers, as well as that he led the launch of VMware's public cloud offering in Asia-Pacific. Before working for VMware, Smith also led Asia-Pacific for CenturyLink and Savvis Communications.
"Digital Realty has established itself as the pre-eminent provider of high-quality data centre and colocation solutions across the globe,” said Smith. “I look forward to joining Digital Realty and helping this outstanding global company capitalise on the many opportunities in the rapidly evolving and fast-growing APAC market."
In addition to Smith, Digital Realty has also named Gregory Wright as its new chief investment officer. Wright will be reporting into chief executive officer William Stein and will lead all Digital Realty’s capital allocation activities.
“Greg's extensive strategic financial advisory experience across real estate, infrastructure and other related sectors makes him a strong addition to our team," said Stein. "In his capacity as an external advisor, his strategic and financial expertise have been integral to the execution of transactions that have been truly transformational for Digital Realty. He served as lead M&A advisor on our $1.9 billion acquisition of Telx and our $7.8 billion merger with DuPont Fabros as well as our recent $1.8 billion Ascenty acquisition. We are confident that his unique combination of financial expertise and intimate familiarity with our business and team will prove invaluable as we continue to build upon this positive momentum in the years ahead."
Wright previously served as co-head of Americas real estate and managing director of the real estate, gaming and lodging group at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. In addition, he served as advisor to the Equity Office Properties Trust on its sale to funds managed by The Blackstone Group, The JBG Companies on its merger with Vornado Realty Trust's Washington, D.C. business and DCT Industrial Trust on its sale to Prologis, Inc. In addition, he advised Douglas Emmett, Paramount Group and Americold Realty Trust on their respective ground-breaking initial public offerings. He will enter the role with Digital Realty in January 2019.
"I am honoured to be named Digital Realty's chief investment officer, and eager to begin working with this world-class company on a deeper level,” said Wright. “Digital Realty is known as an industry leader, and I look forward to working with my new colleagues to support the strategic expansion of the Digital Realty platform around the globe."
