Daniel English is the President and Co-Founder of Legacy Investing, an investment firm focused on technology impacted real estate. Legacy has completed >$3B in transactions across 19M SF in data centers, e-commerce industrial assets, and life science buildings. Prior to co-founding Legacy Investing, Daniel was a tech start-up executive with leadership roles across M&A, corporate development, strategy, and product management. Daniel studied engineering at Carnegie Mellon University and Economics and Finance at Emory University.

Craig K. Huffman is a veteran of real estate private equity with nearly two decades of experience as an entrepreneur. Most recently, he served as Co-Founder and Principal of Ascendance Partners, a Chicago-based real estate private equity firm established in 2006 and focused on commercial real estate investments in metropolitan Chicago. Ascendance was an early sponsor of institutional investment funds that acquired real estate in economically underserved communities of Chicago and has sponsored real estate funds for foundations, endowments, pension funds, family offices and high net worth individuals. Notable Ascendance investors have included Bank of America, PNC Community Development Company, LLC, the Retirement Plan for Chicago Transit Authority Employees’ Trust and the University of Notre Dame. Prior to Ascendance, Huffman worked in diverse senior management roles in the sectors of entrepreneurship, education, non-profit and politics. Huffman serves on numerous philanthropic boards and is an advisor and investor for several emerging minority entrepreneurs. He holds a B.A. from Morehouse College and a master’s degree and MBA from the University of Chicago.

Phillip Koblence is a strategic executive and thought leader in the data center and network space. He co-founded NYI (www.nyi.net) in 1996 and has successfully navigated through an ever-shifting infrastructure landscape, growing the company from a single data center in Lower Manhattan to a robust network with executional capabilities in key national and international markets. His leadership, focus on customer experience, and ability to cut through complexity and hype, has positioned NYI as an industry leader in high-touch infrastructure solutions.

Phillip is also CEO of Critical Ventures, a consulting agency offering a range of services to help clients, owners and investors optimize the value of critical infrastructure assets. Phillip sits on the DE-CIX North America Advisory Board as well as on the Board of OIX (formerly Open-IX). Phillip is Co-Founder of the Nomad Futurist Foundation and Podcast, designed to demystify the world of critical infrastructure and inspire younger generations to join the industry. He is a frequent speaker at industry events and has been profiled by Data Center Knowledge, TheWHIR, MSPMentor, and NJ BIZ. He has an engineering degree from the University of Pennsylvania.

As CEO and Managing Partner in fifteenfortyseven Critical Systems Realty (1547), Todd is involved with running the operations of the business as well as business development and firm strategy. Mr. Raymond has a reputation of successfully building enterprise value, taking companies from start up to executing an exit strategy. Prior to joining 1547, Mr. Raymond served as CEO, President, COO, General Counsel, Controller and a Director of The Telx Group, Inc. during which time he guided the company through multiple financings, acquisitions, SEC registration and two sales to private equity firms. Prior to joining Telx, Mr. Raymond was a founder of Stratus Services Group, Inc., an engineering and staffing services company, and served as its General Counsel and Corporate Secretary. During his tenure, he guided Stratus through multiple private capital raises, the acquisition of over a dozen businesses, and in April 2000, the Initial Public Offering of the company’s stock on NASDAQ. Todd holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Finance from Fairfield University, a Juris Doctor (JD) from Albany Law School of Union University and is completing a Master of Laws (LLM) in Finance Law from IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law. He is a member of Young Presidents Organization (YPO), the Wine & Food Society of New York and the American Corporate Counsel Association as well as multiple bar and professional organizations.

Kemal Hawa is a corporate partner in the Washington, D.C., office of Kirkland & Ellis LLP. Kemal represents many of the world’s largest private equity firms, infrastructure funds, real estate investors and lenders across a broad range of transactions in the digital infrastructure sector domestically and internationally, including mergers and acquisitions, investments, financing arrangements, joint ventures and development projects.

Kemal counsels clients in complex transactions across the digital infrastructure and telecommunications, media and technology industries. This includes many of the world’s largest data center operators, telecommunications carriers, tower companies, cloud providers, fiber providers, media companies, submarine cable operators, fintech companies, wireless and international carriers, internet service providers, satellite companies, equipment manufacturers and electric utilities.

In addition to M&A and financing transactions, Kemal represents companies in connection with the full spectrum of digital infrastructure transactions globally, including the negotiation of data center leases and colocation agreements, telecommunications master service agreements, licensing deals and other commercial transactions.

Kemal is a frequent author and speaker on digital infrastructure topics and has consistently been recognized as an industry leading attorney in the sector. In 2023, Kemal was named as one of Capacity Media’s “Power 100” – a list of the 100 most influential people in the digital infrastructure sector globally, and was voted “TMT M&A Lawyer of the Year” by an independent panel of judges organized by TMT Finance.

Mo Alrob is a Senior Mechanical Engineer at Microsoft, focused on Operations and Safety. Mo is responsible for the uptime, safety, and efficiency of Data Centers in the Chicago Metro. Mo graduated from Purdue University with a mechanical engineering degree and received his MBA from Louisiana State University.

Kevin Lynch brings over 20 years of professional experience in the Data Center Industry, specializing in Data Center Operations and project management. He specializes in energy efficiency and system optimizations. He has managed deployments for data center and IT infrastructure ranging from tier 1 to tier 4. He has facilitated more than 125 IT projects yielding over 130,000,000 Kwh saved. Those projects have utilized over of $9,000,000 in incentives for large IT customers while coordinating between customers, engineers, and utilities to reduce project ROIs by an average of 33%. He is currently CoreSite’s Senior Data Center Operations Manager for CH2 a spectacular Tier 3, 169,000 sq, foot 18MW right in the heart of the south loop.

Bill Kleyman is an award-winning data center, cloud, and digital infrastructure leader. He

was ranked globally by an Onalytica Study as one of the leading executives in cloud

computing and data security. He has spent more than 15 years specializing in the

cybersecurity, virtualization, cloud, and data center industry. As an award-winning

technologist, his most recent efforts with the Infrastructure Masons were recognized

when he received the 2020 IM100 Award and the 2021 iMasons Education Champion

Award for his work with numerous HBCUs and for helping diversify the digital

infrastructure talent pool.

As an industry analyst, speaker, and author, Bill helps the digital infrastructure teams

develop new ways to impact data center design, cloud architecture, security models

(both physical and software), and how to work with new and emerging technologies.

You can read more of Bill’s contributions as a contributing editor in Data Center

Frontier, Data Center Knowledge, InformationWeek, ITPro Today, and others.

Twitter: http://twitter.com/quadstack

http://linkedin.com/in/billkleyman

https://www.billkleyman.com

Melissa Olson has over 20 years of experience in mechanical and control systems. In her current role with Belimo Americas, she is responsible for supporting data center owners and operators through application assistance, solution development, training, and global support. Melissa holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California at Davis.

Ben Crawford is Manager - Business Development at Kohler, focused on emerging energy technologies. Ben is responsible for the planning and implementation of the Power Systems business and product development initiatives in new market segments. Ben graduated from Iowa State University with a mechanical engineering degree and received his MBA from the University of Michigan—Ann Arbor.

Stuart leads the support of client technical needs and assists the Stream design, engineering and construction team with overall site layout and design. With 20+ years of mission-critical mechanical systems experience, Lawrence is instrumental in ensuring Stream’s customers can enjoy the highest standard of service excellence and data center solutions. Lawrence collaborates closely with Stream’s customers, developing the next generation of highly effective, sustainable colocation data centers and helping customers secure the flexibility and agility they need to remain competitive in today’s rapidly evolving environment.

Stuart is a sales and engineering expert that has spent decades working across various forms of mission-critical infrastructure. Prior to joining Stream, he served as an executive at Schneider Electric and a sales director at Aligned Energy. Having lived and worked in London, New York City, and most recently Austin, TX, he has participated in projects in several locations around the world, including the United States, UK, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Thailand, and Brazil. This global mindset and wealth of knowledge allows him to collaboratively problem-solve and help both Stream and its customers overcome complex IT challenges.

Stuart holds a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom.

David is an experienced public speaker and data center evangelist with over 25 years in

the IT/Data Center industry. He has held a variety of roles, from leading national product

and solution engineering teams to hosting the QTS Experience podcast.

David is passionate about using technology and data for the greater good. He believes

that data centers can help humanity prosper, nurture our planet, and safeguard a future

for upcoming generations. He is committed to fostering a community that brings

together a diverse range of users, thinkers, and implementers of technology for

enriching conversations, shared laughter, and immersive experiences into the inner

workings of our digitally connected world.

David is a visionary who is eager to leverage the far-reaching implications of our

interconnected digital lives. He is a respected industry professional known for his

Patrick with over 31 years of domestic and international Data Center experience. He has held key leadership positions orchestrating complex Information Technology solution builds. His passion is delivering application and infrastructure transformations yielding operational efficiencies and cost recuperation. Patrick has been accountable for program development and execution budgets of $17M - $1.45T. His leadership directed matrixed staff, consultants, architects, and multiple EPC contractors. These programs encompassed infrastructure and construction management delivery of $3.4B in data center green and brown field initiatives. Under his leadership high-performing multi-disciplined engineering teams delivered design build and mission critical transformations beyond 4.2GW+ in capacity across the U.S. and EU. These programs aligned engineering teams with strategic technology roadmaps to meet enterprise, colo and hyperscale market needs. Prior to Introba, Patrick has significant experience as business owner, consultant, and contractor delivering mission critical facilities. He has held Data Center leadership positions as Director of Engineering, VP Program Director, VP Director, Enterprise Principal Architect, VP Infrastructure Services, Senior Officer Operations. His experience and client delivery include Airlines, Automotive, Banking, Defense, Financial Services, Enterprise Technology Sector, Education, Energy/Utilities, Health Care, Insurance, Manufacturing, Social media and Retail.

Lily Yusupova is a technology industry professional, having spent the last 16 years assisting her customers in the full range of the data center life cycle. Currently, she is a Strategic Account Executive at Schneider Electric and is responsible for bringing together the full suite of Schneider Electric solutions to provide right-sized, cost-effective, risk-based, innovative data center solutions for Cloud, Colo, Edge, and Telecommunication customers. She has taken a strong interest in what is the Edge, the solutions we need to support the Edge, and is currently part of the OIX committee defining the Edge. Lily prides herself on taking a consultative approach to understand her customer’s capabilities and challenges and offering innovative solutions.

Sam Brown joined the Serverfarm team in 2011 as the Vice President of Engineering & Construction. Managing the engineering and construction teams, Brown is responsible for managing all aspects of data center construction and critical infrastructure projects from initial facility acquisition to design, budgeting, bidding, building, commissioning, and final turnover to the customer. Since joining the company, he has led projects ranging in scale from small power and cooling infrastructure upgrades to complex data center developments.

Prior to joining Serverfarm, Brown worked for five years as a mechanical project engineer for Ascent, LLC. Brown is a graduate of the University of Missouri-Columbia with a degree in Mechanical Engineering.

Dave Buckner has worked in the data center industry for over 18 years, 14 of which have been with Sabey Data Centers where he is currently the Director of Engineering. He and his team oversee the design, construction, commissioning, and delivery of new data center inventory. Previously Dave served a 21-year career in the United States Navy’s Submarine Force.

Vello is the president of Ehvert Mission Critical, a vertically integrated multi-disciplinary engineering and

construction firm specializing in the design, construction, and support of critical facilities with offices in

the United States, Canada and Europe.

Vello has been involved in the design, construction and operation of critical facilities for over forty years

and has pioneered the use of digital technologies and manufacturing processes for critical facility design,

construction and operation.

Ehvert uses a manufacturing approach to construction and is a global leader in the use of BIM, Virtual

Design, Digital Construction, and Automation System Programming for critical facilities.

Vello Ehvert is a registered professional engineer in the United States and Canada, a LEED Accredited

Professional, Uptime Accredited Tier Designer and a Broker of Record with Adelaide Realty Inc. He also

holds an RBQ certification for construction in the Province of Quebec.

Nyssa is a strategic design leader with a proven track record of delivering complex, high-performance data center projects—from mission-critical fit-outs to multi-building hyperscale campuses. She brings a holistic, forward-thinking approach to every phase of development, ensuring that design aligns seamlessly with business objectives, technical requirements, and stakeholder priorities. She excels at orchestrating cross-functional teams, driving clarity and momentum, and delivering scalable solutions with precision and impact. Her commitment to innovation and operational excellence continues to advance the future of data center development.

Kurt’s professional engineering career spans over 40 years. His expertise includes structural engineering design for Mission Critical Facilities such as Data Centers, Health Care Facilities such as Hospitals and Clinics and Life Sciences Facilities such as Biopharmaceutical Pilot Plants and Production Facilities around the United States and the World. His area of expertise is in designing buildings to be occupable after natural disasters including Tornados, Hurricanes and Earthquakes. He has been the structural engineer of record for conventional “fixed Base Buildings” ranging from 1-23 stories, “Base Isolated Buildings” ranging from 1-5 stories, and the retrofit and new construction of buildings incorporating Fluid Viscous Dampers ranging from 1-22 stories. He has published numerous papers on passive energy dissipation and presented the findings at various conventions in Boston, San Francisco and Milan.

For over 23 years as the Founding Principal at PARADIGM Structural Engineers, Kurt spends most of his time developing new leaders at PARADIGM and mentoring staff in Chicago and San Francisco.

Matthew brings to the table an extensive background of over 27 years in the data center industry, encompassing diverse roles such as an IBEW member, technical systems designer & implementation specialist, construction team project executive, CEO of a communications systems design firm, and a co-founder/partner of a data center construction startup. In his present capacity, Matthew orchestrates the expansion and enhancement of assets within the Element Critical portfolio, overseeing everything from financial management, land development and general construction down through the commissioning of critical environments. His insights have been sought after in industry leading publications (BICSINews, Mission Critical Magazine) and has participated in forums and round-table discussions hosted by various thought leaders such-as Bisnow. Notably, Matthew currently holds the position of Vice President on the AFCOM Chicago Chapter Board and has previously led as its President, underscoring his commitment to advancing the field.

Andrew Krebs, Associate Partner, has over 16 years of specialized experience focused on the engineering design and management of electrical systems for mission critical facilities and corporate renovations and additions. He has been with Syska Hennessy for 11 years and is a registered Professional Engineer and LEED Accredited Professional.

Chelsea has 12+ years of experience in the real estate industry. Her considerable experience includes site selection, land development and investment. At Google, Chelsea was involved in more than $5 billion of global infrastructure investments and held multiple roles, including leading development of best practices for the company’s global site selection and portfolio management team. As Site Acquisition and Development Lead, Chelsea believes two things are fundamental to success: asking the right questions and thinking creatively. As Albert Einstein said, "Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.”

As EVP of Construction and Development, Robbie is the leader of T5’s Construction Services division, where he sets the overall vision and business strategy. He holds the general contractors license and/or business license for construction activity across the organization. Robbie holds a degree in Construction Management from Western Carolina University.

Melissa has substantial experience advising developers, investors, owners, tenants, and lenders in a wide variety of complex commercial real estate transactions, including financings, joint ventures, acquisitions and dispositions, development projects, and leases involving industrial, office, retail, and multifamily properties.

A significant part of Melissa’s practice includes the representation of data center operators, private equity firms, and real estate investors in the acquisition, development, and leasing of large data center projects, including power shell leases, sale-leaseback transactions, colocation lease agreements, master service agreements and work orders, master leases and analysis of flow through issues under customer leases. Representative projects include the leasing of a portfolio of data center properties in excess of 1000 megawatts, including negotiation of service level agreements, development work letter, operating expense pass-through obligations, and tax incentive provisions.

In the area of real estate finance, Melissa serves as counsel to national and local banks in acquisition, construction, syndicated, bridge, permanent, and participated commercial loan transactions. She is also experienced in guiding financial institutions through loan modifications, workouts, and REO dispositions.

Melissa is a frequent speaker on lease-related topics and has held leadership positions on various committees of the American Bar Association’s Real Property Leasing Group.

Concentrations

Acquisitions

Dispositions

Financing

Leasing

Development

Saurabh Ladha is the Founder and CEO of Doxel, which provides automated progress tracking powered by AI. Inspired after seeing how construction delays impact lives and livelihoods, Saurabh brought his passion for cyber-physical systems to construction to help project teams stay on track in the face of constant change.

Doxel powers construction on the world’s largest oil and gas facilities, mega data centers, hospitals, and other complex construction.

Saurabh has been recognized by:

Forbes 30 Under 30, 2018

Goldman Sachs Top 100 Builders + Innovators Award, 2019

Saurabh gives back to his alma mater Stanford as an entrepreneurship guest lecturer.

Ed Sitar (pronounced “sitter”) is the Senior Manager of Economic Development at ComEd, where he oversees the company’s strategy and efforts to recruit and retain large business customers and grow jobs and investment in key industries across northern Illinois. Ed is a 29-year veteran of the company, where he has worked closely with development partners to leverage ComEd’s reliable, affordable, and clean energy services to secure major business investment wins for the region. During his tenure with ComEd, he has been a part of the company’s competitive business attraction efforts, helping prospective customers’ to navigate a decision to expand or grow in Illinois amid a changing regulatory climate (prior to the industry’s deregulation in 1997, and on to Illinois’ nation-leading CEJA law). He has also shaped commercial energy efficiency policies and programs to serve the needs of ComEd’s large customers and helped support development projects with commitments to create 250,000 jobs over the last decade.

Terry has over 40 years of progressive experience in Critical Facilities operations and management including strategic planning, critical infrastructure design, operations, and commissioning; business protection and recovery; preventive and predictive maintenance; technical training and professional training development.

Terry is an ASHRAE Distinguished Lecturer and a voting member of ASHRAE TC9.9 "Mission Critical Facilities, Data Centers, Technology Spaces, & Electronic Equipment", ASHRAE SSPC 90.4 "Energy Standard for Data Centers”, ASHRAE SPC-127 "Method of Testing for Rating Computer Room Air Conditioners”, and GPC-1.6P “Commissioning Process for Data Centers”. He is on the Board of Directors of the 7x24 Exchange Carolinas Chapter. He is on the Board of Directors of the Building Commissioning Association’s Southeast Region and has authored or co-authored books, whitepapers, and presentations on Critical Facilities, facilities management, and formal commissioning. He has developed and taught multiple training classes in the design, construction, operation, and maintenance of critical facilities including commercial nuclear power plants, aerospace facilities, and large data centers.

Terry has performed site reliability assessments for more than 50 sites in over 20 countries and 5 continents. Terry writes a bi-monthly column in Mission Critical magazine called Sustainable

Operations.

David C. Meadows II has worked in data center cooling since 1999.  He is currently the Director of Technology with STULZ USA, a manufacturer of precision air conditioning, humidification, and dehumidification products specifically designed for the data center.  Previously David has served as both the Design Engineering Manager and the Applications Engineering Manager at Stulz.  David holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Maryland Baltimore County.  David is also a graduate of the United States Navy Nuclear Power School.

Scott Neill, a 25+ year professional in the data center industry, is renowned for strategic leadership. Trusted for excellence in Senior Technical Account Management and Business Development, he upholds a reputation founded on quality, ethics and innovation.

His expertise spans data center management, cloud ecosystems, data center electrical and networking.

He excels at nurturing client relationships, fostering high-performance teams and driving revenue through solution-based upselling.

Laurance has worked in the data center, telecommunications, and commercial real estate sector for over 20 years on behalf of corporations, private equity funds and his own firm. At AVAIO Digital Partners, Laurance leads all commercialization efforts for the platform, drawing on his deep experience in site selection and data center development to structure commercial contracts that best meet both AVAIO’s and its customers’ needs.

Prior to joining AVAIO, Laurance was a Principal/Director and Regional Lead for Site Selection & Acquisition of Hyperscale Data Centers for Microsoft Corporation. He also led their Government and Sovereign data center leasing program in the Americas and directed the Global Edge Data Center leasing program. Prior to Microsoft, Laurance was the President of Comdesco Group, a communications design and construction management firm focused on developing fiber optic and wireless networks in the Americas. Laurance holds a B.G.S. in Political Science and History from the University of Iowa and a Juris Doctorate from the University of Minnesota School of Law.

Nabeel Mahmood is a Technologist, Futurist and a Keynote Speaker. His career is driven by one question – what’s next? He is passionate about the power of technology to deliver competitive and transformational change and the need to develop digital leadership that will create the enterprise of the future. He believes strongly in simplification, with a purpose. Nabeel brings 18 plus years of experience leading large-scale global technology organizations through seasons of explosive growth via M&A, global expansion, implementing new business models and technology innovation. His expertise includes leading organizations through transformation changes, connecting IT to the needs of the business, technology innovation, Big Data, Cloud, ERP, IoT, Mobility and Data Centers. He brings a unique blend of experiences spanning the entire breadth of technology from Grid to Chip. At, heart he’s a true technologist and futurist, he is a proven strategist, winsome communicator and leader with extraordinary vision and operational expertise within very large, complex organizations. Nabeel is a strategic CIO identifying opportunities that are being underpinned by emerging technologies. He serves on multiple boards and is an advisor to CIOs and CEO across a number of industries.

With just over two decades in software and related disciplines, I continue to be excited to see how the world of computing keeps evolving. WIth a background in Geological Sciences, my journey into software engineering, IT, business has been a meandering one; albeit one

surrounded by incredibly gifted people who were always willing to help and teach.

In my current role as Head of Customer Engineering, Select accounts for Retail(Fashion) North America at Google Cloud, I have had the opportunity to work with some of the best in product, engineering, support and sales to help customers in their cloud transformation journey.

Being a practitioner in this space, I am witness to the unbelievable scale, flexibility and power of cloud that can help customers rapidly build, scale and operationalize the best in class experiences that matters to their business. Ranging from building resilient elastic applications to serverless approach in Data(it's all Big now) to rapid innovation in AI; Cloud is where the next big ideas are being born and being nurtured into reality. Grateful to be able to speak to all of you about some of my experiences, as well as to learn from you and see what you are building for the future!

Jeff Moerdler is chair of the Haynes Boone Data Center and Digital Infrastructure Practice and a real estate partner in the New York office. He has more than 40 years’ experience in general commercial real estate law. Jeff’s real estate practice includes acquisitions, sales, development, leasing, and borrower’s side financing. Jeff also has a particular focus on real estate challenges facing communications, technology and energy companies, and represents property owners and telecom companies in telecom real estate matters, particularly in data center development, acquisitions, sales, leases, colocation agreements and service level agreements. His clients include both large national companies and smaller, local clients, and includes representation of landlords and tenants in all types of leases; counseling owners and developers in the acquisition, sale, joint venture, development, and renovation of property as well as sale-leaseback transactions; advising lenders and borrowers in commercial loans; and the representation of all parties in real estate litigation. He is actively involved in settling real estate, partnership, and inter-family disputes. He also represents many not-for-profit entities and is active in health care, senior living, and educational real estate.

During the past 35 years, Jeff has developed considerable experience in the intersection of real estate with communications, technology, and energy issues. He has extensive experience representing landlords, tenants, developers, and communications service providers in the leasing, purchase, sale, and financing of data centers, colocation facilities, radio and television broadcast antennas, distributed and in-building wireless systems, rooftop antennas, and fiber-optic transactions as well as the wiring of buildings for broadband communications access. Jeff has also negotiated thousands of data center leases, master services agreements, colocation agreements and service level agreements, rooftop and cellular antenna leases, inside wiring agreements, and antenna tower leases throughout the country – covering over 500 million square feet.

He has also devoted a considerable portion of his practice to power and energy issues related to real estate and other technology matters, including large solar and wind installations, battery storage facilities, and bulk power purchases.

Jeff is a frequent speaker on real estate, data center, and telecom topics around the country. He is Fellow of the American College of Real Estate Lawyers and on the faculty of the Advanced Commercial Leasing Institute. He regularly speaks as a panelist at data center, digital infrastructure and real estate conference around the United States. In addition, he is regularly quoted in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Bisnow, Commercial Property News, Real Estate Weekly, and other publications. He co-authored the first treatise chapter on telecom real law for Powell on Real Property in 1999.

Jeff has previously served in numerous governmental positions, including as a Commissioner of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, a member of the New York State Banking Board, a member of the New York State Financial Control Board, a member of the Departmental Disciplinary Committee of the Appellate Division of the First Department of the New York State Supreme Court, Assistant to the First Deputy Mayor of the City of New York, and assistant to the Deputy Borough President of the Borough of Manhattan. From 1981 to 1982, Jeff served as a law clerk to the Honorable Charles L. Brieant, US District Judge, and later Chief Judge, for the Southern District of New York.

Jeff is also an emergency medical technician on his local volunteer ambulance and President of his local chapter, as well as having served for 8 years on the Board of Trustees of the umbrella organization which is the largest volunteer ambulance service in the United States.

Rafal Rak is Vice President of Digital Realty and serves as the company’s Portfolio Manager for Midwest and West regions. In this capacity, he has overall responsibility for strategic planning, development, operations, leasing and financial performance of 48 buildings with 9.2 million rentable square feet. Digital Realty is a leading global data center Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) with 215 properties in 14 countries and 36 markets representing 34 million square feet in North America, Europe, Asia, Latin America and Australia. Digital Realty is the 8th largest publicly-traded REITs in the U.S. with a market capitalization of approximately $27 billion, a member of the prestigious S&P 500 and has been recognized by the EPA as one of the top 100 largest buyers of renewal energy.

Darwesh founded Bolt Graphics after spending a decade designing and building data centers and cloud environments where he dealt with ever increasing performance requirements. He created Bolt to solve the performance issues with computationally intensive workloads at scale while drastically reducing power consumption. Bolt’s groundbreaking first generation processors solve these challenges and will be shipping in 2024.

Sean is the Vice President of Data Center Strategy for the Americas, charged with developing deeper client relationships, broader industry awareness, and enhanced partner collaboration by evangelizing JLL’s broad facility management, sustainability, commissioning, capital market, colocation and cloud advisory services. He works with clients to fully leverage the firm’s capabilities to maximum digital infrastructure value, minimize facility risk and drive data center innovation.

Sean has also led Digital Transformation strategic programs at two Fortune 500 companies, executing global data center consolidation and cloud migration, and initiatives that resulted in reduced time-to-revenue.

He is active in the industry, participating in panels, roundtables, podcasts, and other speaking events. Sean publishes regularly on such venues as Data Center Frontier, Data Center Dynamics, Mission Critical Magazine, and Data Centre Magazine.

I started my passion for security as an active duty Marine in August 1998 when I volunteered to join the Marine Security Guard program (embassy duty) in response to the bombings of US Embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya. Duty stations included Pretoria, RSA; Maputo, Mozambique; Manama, Bahrain. Upon leaving the Marine Corps in 2001 I was recruited to Florida Power & Light (parent company NextEra Energy) to join their security operations team. After many years in the security operations center I was promoted to a Physical Security Specialist position where we focused on standardizing security system designs for the company's properties throughout the USA, Canada, and Spain. While in this position I was part of a cross functional team working with substation engineers on a complete design package to retrofit existing substations and build new substations in response to the April 2013 Metcalf Substation attack and in support of NERC CIP-014. My remaining few years at NextEra I spent managing the security operations center team. In 2019 I jumped on an opportunity to join the data center industry with Meta (then Facebook) at a new construction location in Huntsville, Alabama. Most recently, my family relocated to the greater Chicago area where I now support Meta's security mission for our Dekalb, IL data center and our leased space with CyrusOne in Aurora, IL.

Amy Dunton is a business development professional with a focus on developing business

relationships and strategies with her customers, partners and industry peers. Serving as

the foundation of her consultative wholistic approach, Amy’s over 25 years of experience

in physical and network security, structured cabling, power/cooling, connectivity,

network, storage, and compute brings a well-rounded and unique perspective to the

critical infrastructure industry.  Her roles have included working for distribution,

manufacturing, manufacturing representatives, and a leading Enterprise IT Solutions

provider.  Her expansive network and understanding of IT infrastructure, Facilities and

Data Centers has fuelled a passion for creating an environment with more collaboration

as IT Infrastructure and technology trends can greatly impact how we design, build and

secure our data centers and critical infrastructure.

Amy currently serves on the board of the AFCOM Greater MN Chapter and the 7x24

Exchange MN Chapter. She is serving as the Co-Chair for the SIA Perimeter Security

I grew up learning to navigate without technology, no cell phones, no GPS, just a map, the stars, and survival instincts. As a Boy Scout spending weeks in the wilderness, I became fascinated with how humans thrive when nature and ingenuity work together. Throughout my childhood I also traveled to 45+ countries where I saw old-world engineering aqueducts, natural cooling systems, architecture designed with the environment. That sparked a belief that guides me today: the future is won by combining timeless wisdom with breakthrough technology. I enlisted in the Marines because I wanted to serve. I became an officer because I wanted to lead. From combat deployments to joint cyber and SOF operations, I learned to solve problems with limited resources, build teams that trust each other, and move fast when the mission demands it. In the private sector, I continued building at speed. I’ve led high-stakes global operations for hyperscalers and defense customers integrating autonomy, AI, and UAS to protect people, assets, and national advantage. I develop programs that scale quickly, reduce risk, and increase operational performance. My mission is simple: Win the Future.That means accelerating technologies that keep people safer, systems smarter, and national security ahead of the threat. It means building solutions that reduce conflict, expand opportunity, and strengthen the world we leave behind. CAREER HIGHLIGHTS:

Mr. Borchetta joined Harrison Street in 2013. As a Senior Managing Director and Co-Head of North America Transactions, he is responsible for the sourcing, analyzing, and closing of transactions and venture relationships with a focus on digital real estate and infrastructure assets as well as healthcare. During his tenure at Harrison Street, Mr. Borchetta has acquired or developed over $16.0 billion of data center, medical office, senior housing, and life science assets on behalf of the firm’s discretionary funds.

This includes over $6.5 billion in the digital real estate and infrastructure segments where he has led transactions activity in the sector for the company. As a result of the efforts in the space, Harrison Street was recognized by PERE in the digital category as Data Center Investor of the year for 2022 and 2023 and Mr. Borchetta was recognized by the Tech Capital Global Awards for 2024 as the Under 35 Digital Infrastructure Finance Talent Award finalist. Harrison Street was also recognized as Global Alternatives Investor of the Year during those same periods.

Mr. Borchetta holds a BA from Northwestern University, with a major in Economics, minor in Business Institutions, and a certificate in Energy and Sustainability. He previously served as an alumni member for the Advisory Committee on Investment Responsibility to Northwestern University’s endowment. He has also completed programs sponsored by the Fulbright Commission and Department of Energy, including the Fulbright UK Summer Institute and the Summer Institute on Sustainability and Energy, respectively.

Mike has more than 30 years of sophisticated and broad-based real estate experience representing clients in buying, selling, developing, leasing and financing real estate assets in all asset classes. Since 2010, he has been at the forefront of the expanding, multi-disciplinary data center, digital infrastructure and IT commercial contracting fields that straddle real estate and technology. Mike was named the 2023 Lawyer of the Year in Chicago for Privacy and Data Security Law by Best Lawyers. He is in-demand for presentations at digital infrastructure conferences and is often quoted in trade periodicals.

Mike's clients include insurance companies, Fortune 500 companies, pension funds, investment advisers, enterprise companies, financial institutions, real estate developers, high-tech companies and data center developers/providers. His recent transactions include representing multiple platform data center companies in acquiring land for development, developing data centers and entering into leases and master services agreements with major technology companies; acquiring operating data centers for private equity-backed real estate and technology funds; representing a financial services client in the outsourcing of all of its legacy IT infrastructure supporting its banking operations and applications, including mission-critical banking applications; negotiating joint venture agreements related to the development of data centers and multi-family developments; and representing a real estate investment company in the sale of a carrier hotel/data center in a major US market.