DEEP DIVE
WE ‘DEEP DIVE’ WITH MITCH FONSECA, VICE
PRESIDENT PRODUCT AND DATA CENTER
STRATEGY, CYXTERA TECHNOLOGIES,
WHO TELLS US ABOUT LIFE INSIDE AND
OUTSIDE THE OFFICE.
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
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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
I STRIVE TO
MANAGE MY
TEAM AS
AN ACTUAL
TEAM OF
INDIVIDUALS
WHO ARE ALL
RELIANT ON
EACH OTHER
TO ACHIEVE
SUCCESS.
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
www.intelligentdatacentres.com