DEEP DIVE
WE ‘DEEP DIVE’ WITH PETER WESTWOOD, UK DATA
CENTRE DIRECTOR, SPIE, WHO TELLS US ABOUT LIFE
INSIDE AND OUTSIDE THE OFFICE.
AS A MANAGER AND
LEADER, I BELIEVE THAT
YOU NEED TO BE ABLE TO
ADOPT SEVERAL DIFFERENT
STYLES TO GET THE BEST
OUT OF YOUR TEAM TO
ACHIEVE TOP RESULTS.
What would you describe as your
most memorable achievement in
the data centre industry?
I have been very fortunate in my career
to have worked on some of the largest
data centre projects in the UK and have
many memorable achievements but
some of the best for me were related to
innovation and prefabrication solutions
where we built 75% of the mechanical
and electrical services off site with over
500 modules and plant skids. This
not only delivered speed to market in
record time but produced the best
quality standards in a controlled
environment in the safest manner.
If you think that prefabrication and
modularisation is common place
now, a decade ago this type of work
was truly groundbreaking.
This was extremely forward
thinking for its time and I was
working with one of the first
companies to execute it at
this scale.
What first made you think
of a career in technology/
data centres?
I have always enjoyed
technology and as my career
has progressed over the
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last 30 years, initially as an
electrical design engineer
through to management, I have
always looked for opportunities to
adopt new technologies and innovation.
I was very fortunate to have the
opportunity to deliver my first data
centre project for a banking and finance
customer in 2006 when the FSA driven
requirement market boomed for out of
town data centres.
I relished the challenge for this very exciting
type of project and it was my dream as an
engineer to cover all system architectures
with leading technology solutions. I also
find it extremely rewarding to be involved
from conception to completion. I have never
looked back and love working in the data
centre market.
What style of management
philosophy do you employ with
your current position?
Throughout my career I have always been
interested in and have paid close attention
to my managers and their management
styles, and as a result I have learned what
the best style of management is for me
personally. In all our careers we have had
good experiences of our best mentors and
managers and learned from what did or
didn’t work from those experiences. As a
manager and leader, I believe
that you need to be able to
adopt several different styles to
get the best out of your team to
achieve top results. Everyone is
different in motivation, so I adapt
to what styles are needed. My best
teams of people have been made
up of a mix of solid experience,
technical ability, management skills,
enthusiasm and ability to work
collaboratively as a team.
What do you think is the
current hot talking point
within the data centre space?
There are a number of areas that are
considered as hot topics:
1. How the industry supports
the ever-growing hyperscale data
centre operators from a consumer,
vendor and operator perspective. This
market is becoming more competitive
across all areas and we need to ensure
that the infrastructure is in place to meet
future demand
2. Edge computing is a large category
that will include hundreds of markets
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