The QTS Experience

Thriving Alignment with Grant Shih

A team that isn’t aligned on it’s purpose is going to struggle. An organization that doesn’t take care of its people will fail. In our fourth and final part of the ATP CIO Charity Event, Grant Shih, CIO of National DCP, brings wisdom and insight into these two key areas on the next QTS experience.

 

About Our Guest:

Grant Shih serves as the Chief Information Officer for National DCP, (NDCP) the $2 billion supply chain management company serving the franchises of Dunkin’. In this role, Grant focuses on leading innovative technology solutions, improving infrastructure operations, performing systems implementations, integrating data sources, delivering end user support, and providing security around enterprise transactions and activities. Prior to joining the company, the 23 year IT industry veteran served as the Chief Information Officer for Encompass Digital Media. He also held leadership roles at Carter’s/OshKosh B’Gosh and Accenture. Grant is also active with several non-profits that align with his passions around childhood education, STEM learning, and local community enablement, including founding and operating the IT Girls Foundation.

Visit The QTS Experience YouTube Channel for video versions of all the podcasts, and be sure to Like, Comment, and Subscribe!

For more information, go to www.QTSDataCenters.com

Learn More about QTS Data Centers on the QTS YouTube Channel.

Think you have a great topic for a podcast or would like to schedule an interview with Dave? Send in your requests here.

 

The Art of the Possible with Edwina Payne

Traditionally CIO’s have focused on the technology of the business. In this third part of our four part series from the ATP CIO Charity Event, Edwina Payne illustrates the need for CIO’s to explain to their organizations the why and how technology should be used to create customer intimacy and a new customer experience, on the next QTS Experience.

About Our Guest:

Edwina Payne is an accomplished executive with extensive experience in life sciences, technology strategy, digital transformation, program management, cyber security, internal audit, manufacturing, and distribution.

Edwina currently serves on the board of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Atlanta.  She serves on the Audit, Enterprise Risk and Compliance, and Governance and Compensation committees.  Edwina also serves on several nonprofit boards, including the Purdue Polytechnic Dean’s Council at Purdue University as well as the Technology Advisory Board at Marian University. She is active in the Georgia community, having served on the board of Tech Alpharetta, which helps grow technology and innovation as well as support technology start-ups in the city of Alpharetta.  She is currently a member of the advisory board for Georgia CIO as well as Inspiredu, a nonprofit providing access to technology for Atlanta’s underserved youths.

Edwina is the Chief Information Officer for Varsity Brands, where she leads the IT strategy and IT operations of their three divisions.  She has held multiple roles in the life sciences space, most recently at McKesson Corporation where she was the Senior Vice President, Technology Strategy.  She was responsible for McKesson’s technology strategy, enterprise portfolio management office, as well as the overall enterprise architecture design used to deliver products and services to both internal customers as well as healthcare professionals who use McKesson’s software platforms.

Prior to joining McKesson Edwina was Chief Information Officer at Avanos Medical (formerly Halyard Health).    At Avanos Edwina’s team delivered the company’s first digital product, On-Q*Trac, which enabled health care professionals and patients to better manage their post-surgical pain. She led the IT divesture activities of their Surgical and Infection Prevention portfolio, including the sale of Avanos’ legacy IT assets with the divestiture, which funded the IT transformation for their remaining business.

Edwina has more than 30 years of global supply chain and information technology experience, including directing strategic initiatives and leveraging technology to help organizations become more competitive. She began her corporate career at Kellogg Company, where she held leadership positions in the United States as well as Brazil and Mexico. Following Kellogg, Edwina joined Johnson & Johnson in 1999 in their DePuy Orthopaedics medical device unit. She assumed roles of increasing responsibility, including CIO for DePuy, eventually serving as vice president and program manager for a global ERP deployment for Johnson & Johnson’s medical devices and diagnostics business.  After leaving Johnson & Johnson she joined Zimmer Biomet, where she was Vice President and Chief Information Officer.  She led their IT organization’s transformation, creating a global organization focused on delivering competitive advantage for the Company. Under her leadership the IT team successfully completed the acquisition and integration of Biomet.

Edwina earned her bachelor’s degree in computer technology from Purdue University in 1986. She is an active thought leader and presenter in a variety of industry and professional organizations. In 2009 Edwina was named a Distinguished Alumni by Purdue University, was recognized as a 2012 CIO 100 award winner from IDG, was a finalist for Georgia CIO of the Year in 2018 and was recognized by HMG as a 2019 Top Technology Executive to Watch.  Edwina is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese.

Edwina and her family reside in Alpharetta, Georgia. 

Visit The QTS Experience YouTube Channel for video versions of all the podcasts, and be sure to Like, Comment, and Subscribe!

For more information, go to www.QTSDataCenters.com

Learn More about QTS Data Centers on the QTS YouTube Channel.

Think you have a great topic for a podcast or would like to schedule an interview with Dave? Send in your requests here.

Transforming the Customer Experience with Dwain Wilcox

In this second part of our four part ATP CIO Charity Event series, Dwain Wilcox from TK Elevators reminds us that the customer experience may be the most important component of digital transformation, on the next QS Experience.

About Our Guest:

Dwain Wilcox is the EVP and CIO of the Americas for TK Elevator based in Atlanta, GA. Since joining the organization in 2017, he has been responsible for IT strategy and execution while leading transformation and digitalization programs in the Manufacturing, Field Service and Spare Parts business units.  

Mr. Wilcox possesses over 25 years of senior executive experience spanning multiple industries including Manufacturing, Pharmaceuticals, Chemicals, Supply Chain and Professional Services.  Prior to joining Thyssenkrupp, he served as EVP and CIO of Axiall Corporation, a multi-billion dollar Chemicals and Building Products manufacturing company.  His past global executive and CIO roles also include CHEP, Seroligcals-Millipore, and Lanier Worldwide.

Dwain is a graduate of Florida State University and enjoys his outdoor time on the water, on his touring motorcycle, playing golf, or spending time with his family.

ABOUT TK Elevator (formerly: thyssenkrupp Elevator)

With customers in over 100 countries served by 50,000 employees, TK Elevator achieved sales of around €8 billion in the fiscal year 2019/2020. Over 1,000 locations around the world provide an extensive network that guarantees closeness to customers. Over the past decades, TK Elevator has established itself as one of the world’s leading elevator companies and became independent since its sale by Thyssenkrupp AG in August 2020. The company’s most important business line is the service business represented by over 24,000 service technicians. The product portfolio covers commodity elevators for residential and commercial buildings to cutting-edge, highly customized solutions for state-of-the-art skyscrapers. In addition, it also consists of escalators and moving walks, passenger boarding bridges, stair, and platform lifts.

Visit The QTS Experience YouTube Channel for video versions of all the podcasts, and be sure to Like, Comment, and Subscribe!

For more information, go to www.QTSDataCenters.com

Learn More about QTS Data Centers on the QTS YouTube Channel.

Think you have a great topic for a podcast or would like to schedule an interview with Dave? Send in your requests here.

The CIO Whisperer with Michael Snyder

This week I sit down with CIO’s and thought leaders in a 4 part series recorded at the ATP CIO Charity Golf Tournament in Atlanta. In this first episode, Michael Snyder and I discuss how to ensure that digital transform leads to a healthy, reimagined post pandemic environment on the next, QTS Experience.

About Our Guest

As Senior Vice President, Advisory Services at Advocate, Michael manages Advocate’s Optimization, Transformation, Strategy, and Insider Marketplace practices. These practices consist of seasoned consultants and solution architects that work with enterprises to drive the efficient use of technology and enable business outcomes utilizing Advocate’s proven methodologies and the Technology Business Management framework. Prior to joining the Advocate team, Michael spent five years at Amazon Web Services (AWS), where he built a global business focused on assisting private equity firms to leverage the cloud to drive value within their portfolio companies. In addition to his work at AWS, Michael spent five years at Booz & Company (now, Strategy) in their Digital and Business Transformation practice where he completed projects across various industries focused on IT strategy, digital transformation, and digital product development. He also spent six years at BB&T leading a team focused on IT process improvement. Michael has an MBA from the Darden Graduate School of Business at the University of Virginia and a Bachelor of Science in Computer Information Systems from Clemson University. He resides in Atlanta with his wife Mary Alise and his daughter, Lily.

Visit The QTS Experience YouTube Channel for video versions of all the podcasts, and be sure to Like, Comment, and Subscribe!

For more information, go to www.QTSDataCenters.com

Learn More about QTS Data Centers on the QTS YouTube Channel.

Think you have a great topic for a podcast or would like to schedule an interview with Dave? Send in your requests here.

Ecocentrism vs. Technocentrism with Dan Scarbrough

Can technology resolve the challenges mankind is creating to preserve the planet for future generations?

Ecocentrism (meaning values centered on ecology) and technocentrism (meaning values centered on technology) are two opposing perspectives concerning attitudes towards human technology and its ability to affect, control and even protect the environment. Today, most people still believe in the necessity of human progress.
In the podcast, Dan and Dave address this from multiple perspectives.

About Our Guest:

Dan Scarbrough is the co-founder of Data Center Dynamics, a leading voice of the data center industry since 2001 and was CEO until 2013.

Having worked in the data center and cloud infrastructure industry since its inception, Dan has an intricate understanding of this rapidly developing sector. After stepping down from DCD, Dan created RockScar as a holding company to capitalize on the industry understanding and global network that he had built over the last twenty years.

He is currently working on his next media and events project with the launch of Digital Infrastructure Partners a group of like-minded individuals focused on moving the global market towards sustainable digital infrastructure.

 

Visit The QTS Experience YouTube Channel for video versions of all the podcasts, and be sure to Like, Comment, and Subscribe!

For more information, go to www.QTSDataCenters.com

Learn More about QTS Data Centers on the QTS YouTube Channel.

Think you have a great topic for a podcast or would like to schedule an interview with Dave? Send in your requests here.

Sustainability as a Culture with Eric Gertsman

We all know about Software as a Service, it was essentially invented by Salesforce. Eric Gertsman, Director, Data Center Planning & Sustainability, explains how the world’s largest CRM has woven sustainability into its DNA – on the next QTS Experience.

 

About Our Guest:

Eric is a high-energy innovator and implementer. He has worked with clients in multiple sectors to transform business problems into actionable strategies, wearing multiple hats to achieve goals: strategy development, program and project management, marketing and business development, data analysis, change management, process optimization, writing, research, and more. In addition to energy management and sustainability, Eric has worked extensively in the technology and consumer industries.

 

Visit The QTS Experience YouTube Channel for video versions of all the podcasts, and be sure to Like, Comment, and Subscribe!

For more information, go to www.QTSDataCenters.com

Learn More about QTS Data Centers on the QTS YouTube Channel.

Think you have a great topic for a podcast or would like to schedule an interview with Dave? Send in your requests here.

SMART Data Centers: Sending Infrastructure to School with Brent Bensten

Brent Bensten, CTO of QTS Datacenters, shares what a SMART Datacenter is and how it leverages data to drive efficiency, enhance security, and reduce environmental impact … on the next QTS Experience.

About Our Guest:

Brent joined QTS in 2016 as CTO of Product Development and now serves as the Company’s Chief Technology Officer. Brent has led technology and innovation at QTS since joining and has been the driving force behind digitization of the QTS business.

Prior to joining QTS, Brent was VP of Operations and then promoted to Chief Technology Officer at Carpathia, a managed service and cloud company acquired by QTS in June of 2015. Carpathia specialized in complex and compliant hosting supporting the fastest growing startups, enterprises and government agencies.

During his time at QTS, he has been responsible for delivering the industry’s first Service Delivery Platform (SDP). In 2019, he created the QTS Innovation Lab (QIL) to create new enabling technologies with a focus on artificial intelligence, visualization and automation that radically reshape how customers interact with the data center providing transparency, visibility and digital services.

Brent graduated from University of Mary Washington in 2000 with a degree in Business. Brent has a passion for workplace health initiatives including sponsoring events such as annual blood drives and helping to gamify fitness initiatives between QTS offices. Brent values family first and most enjoys watching his three kids play sports on weekends; he’s also a die-hard Washington Caps fan.

 

Visit The QTS Experience YouTube Channel for video versions of all the podcasts, and be sure to Like, Comment, and Subscribe!

For more information, go to www.QTSDataCenters.com

Learn More about QTS Data Centers on the QTS YouTube Channel.

Think you have a great topic for a podcast or would like to schedule an interview with Dave? Send in your requests here.

The Data Center Rockstar with Peter Hannaford

Peter has built and operated data centers around the world. He is an innovator in infrastructure cooling a legendary operator, and an early adapter in the fight for sustainability within the industry. Lately, Peter has focused his talents on bring the right executives into the industry with a focus on diversity. Join me and Peter as we discuss his 40+ years in the business and how now is the best time to be part of this amazing world, on the next QTS Experience.

About Our Guest:

Peter Hannaford

https://www.portmanpartners.com/

Peter was honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Datacloud EMEA Congress in 2018 in Monaco for “outstanding achievement spanning one’s entire career”. This followed his pioneering work in Nigeria in the 1970’s in implementing Nigeria’s first on-line banking system; in developing foreign exchange systems for international banks in the 1980’s; in starting one of Europe’s first datacenter construction firms in the 1990’s; in founding the company which developed the first water-cooled rack for high-density servers which was sold to APC in 2003 and which led to APC’s development of In-Row cooling and Containment which dominated the datacenter market in the 2000’s; the founding of Datacenter People, the first global recruitment firm dedicated to the datacenter sector in 2010; and in 2018 the founding of Portman Partners where Peter now works, using his considerable personal network and reputation to help firms in the digital infrastructure space to find leadership talent around the world. In 2019 he was included in the Power 200 list of personalities around the world who "are leading the datacenter and cloud and sectors through charting new innovations or technological breakthroughs, investment or business acumen or exceptional entrepreneurial skillsets".

 

Visit The QTS Experience YouTube Channel for video versions of all the podcasts, and be sure to Like, Comment, and Subscribe!

For more information, go to www.QTSDataCenters.com

Learn More about QTS Data Centers on the QTS YouTube Channel.

Think you have a great topic for a podcast or would like to schedule an interview with Dave? Send in your requests here.

The Science of Fear with Eva Holland

We all like a great adventure right? But what if that adventure has to deal with confronting life long anxiety, phobias, and debilitating fear? Freelance writer Eva Holland joins me as she discusses her new book: Nerve, Adventures in the Science of Fear. We discuss her own story with fear and how she used emerging scientific techniques in her own journey – on the next QTS Experience.

About Our Guest

www.evaholland.com

@evaholland

Eva is a writer-for-hire based in Whitehorse, the capital city of Canada’s Yukon Territory. She's done all sorts of writing and editing work in the ten years since she quit her day job and started freelancing full-time – travel writing, sports writing, movie reviews, grant writing, copy writing, blogging… – but these days she's focused mainly on narrative nonfiction in its various forms: personal essays, reported features, and all the shades in between.

You can find her stories in Outside, WIRED, Pacific Standard, Bloomberg Businessweek, AFAR, Grantland, The Walrus, Canadian Geographic, Hakai, Hazlitt, and many more outlets in print and online. She is a former associate editor and contributing editor at Up Here, an award-winning magazine focused on the Canadian north, and a founding contributor to Vela, an online magazine of creative nonfiction. Eva was also a longtime editor at World Hum, where in addition to editing others’ work she wrote occasional blog posts and travel-themed personal essays.

Eva likes to write about travel, sports, outdoor adventure, and the ways we interact with the wilderness. She has also dabbled in crime writing, and spent some time covering the Yukon mining industry. She is interested in the changes and conflicts that are coming to Alaska and the Canadian North, and to the North American West more generally – in 2015, she wrote a column for Pacific Standard called Dispatches From a Changing Arctic. Her stories have been listed as notable selections in The Best American Essays 2015 and 2013, The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2017, The Best American Travel Writing 2015, and The Best American Sports Writing 2016 and 2013; her work has also been regularly cited by Longform, Longreads, Byliner, The Browser, Nieman Storyboard, and Lady Journos. In 2015 Eva was a finalist for a Canadian National Magazine Award.

Visit The QTS Experience YouTube Channel for video versions of all the podcasts, and be sure to Like, Comment, and Subscribe!

For more information, go to www.QTSDataCenters.com

Learn More about QTS Data Centers on the QTS YouTube Channel.

Think you have a great topic for a podcast or would like to schedule an interview with Dave? Send in your requests here.

Supremely Human with Jeremy Gilbertson, Part 2

My next guest says connecting through music and storytelling is supremely human. Jeremy Gilbertson Is a technologist, musician, writer, and producer, but mostly, he is supremely human, on this episode of the QTS experience.

About Our Guest:

https://www.jeremygilbertson.com/ Jeremy is an insatiably curious entrepreneur who loves to connect, learn and teach. He applies creativity, design-thinking, and technology expertise in order to problem-solve across industries. A musician, producer, and experience designer, he is also a writer who investigates and shares perspectives on interdisciplinary subjects. Jeremy is also an expert in data center and IT transformation.

 

Visit The QTS Experience YouTube Channel for video versions of all the podcasts, and be sure to Like, Comment, and Subscribe!

For more information, go to www.QTSDataCenters.com

Learn More about QTS Data Centers on the QTS YouTube Channel.

Think you have a great topic for a podcast or would like to schedule an interview with Dave? Send in your requests here.