Australian Data Centres appoints trio of executives for expansion
Australian Data Centres has announced the appointment of three senior executives to its national leadership team as it moves into its next stage of growth.
The additions to the leadership team come following the recent appointment of Mark Pont as Chief Executive Officer. Under Mr Pont's direction, the company has brought on board Matt Holden as Chief Operating Officer, Greg Gale as Chief Information Security Officer, and Peter Adcock as Chief Technology Officer.
Executive appointments
Rob Kelly, Executive Chairman at Australian Data Centres, said the appointments would support the company's plan to expand its presence across the country by attracting new global customers and industry partners.
"ADC's management team is now fully loaded, future-focused and ready to offer a new scale of flexible co-location and build-to-suit sovereign data storage solutions tailored to our customers' long-term requirements, whether they are seeking agility, control or cost efficiency," Mr Kelly said.
Matt Holden will serve as the Chief Operating Officer, bringing more than 30 years of experience in the Australian market. His background covers the design, construction, commissioning, and operation of data centres, with previous senior executive roles in secure critical infrastructure, hyperscale cloud and artificial intelligence environments. He previously worked with hyperscale data centre providers and supported enterprise-level operations in his leadership role at CBRE Data Centre Solutions.
Chief Executive Officer Mark Pont said Mr Holden's comprehensive experience would support ADC in providing structured operations and security for its customers.
"Matt has an extensive track record serving both Australian Government and Defence clients, as well as major global hyperscale customers. His ability to navigate the unique needs of these sectors positions ADC to deliver tailored, high-assurance solutions across next generation data centre environments," Mr Pont added.
Greg Gale takes on the position of Chief Information Security Officer, following senior roles at Microsoft, Cisco, and the Australian Department of Defence, where he served as CISO and led the establishment of the Australian Cyber Security Centre. Mr Gale's time at Microsoft included serving as National Security Officer, spearheading the PROTECTED certification for Azure and Microsoft 365, which was the first certification in Australia of its kind for hyperscale cloud.
Mr Pont highlighted Mr Gale's contributions to the sector during his tenure with Microsoft and other organisations.
"As the NSO Greg spearheaded the PROTECTED certification for Azure and Microsoft 365 - the first hyperscale cloud certification of its kind in Australia.
He played a central role in expanding Microsoft Azure's footprint, overseeing the security and risk aspects of new region deployments tailored for government and regulated industries. Greg also led the development of security requirements, design of secure cloud platforms and data centres to support high-security government workloads at the highest classification levels," Mr Pont said.
Peter Adcock steps into the role of Chief Technology Officer, with an extensive history in data centre development across the Asia-Pacific region. Mr Adcock's previous roles include leading the data centre design team for ARUP, and spending 12 years as Asia Pacific Vice President of Design & Construction at Digital Realty, where he oversaw the development of 21 data centres across eight metropolitan areas in Asia Pacific. These developments delivered a combined total of over 5.2 million square feet and 350MW of built IT capacity.
Mr Pont said Mr Adcock's expertise in high-density and artificial intelligence environments, as well as his knowledge of GPU workloads, would be important as ADC continues to focus on sustainable and energy-efficient data centre solutions that can evolve with technological advances.
"Peter's deep engineering expertise and proven track record of delivering large-scale data centres on schedule and aligned to customer requirements make him an outstanding addition to our leadership team. His extensive experience perfectly aligns with ADC's ambitious growth plans, enhancing our delivery capability and helping to de-risk highly advanced new campus builds. Peter's leadership will be critical as we continue to scale our sovereign, AI-ready data centre footprint to meet the needs of our clients and Australia's national capability," Mr Pont added.
The appointments strengthen the company's leadership team as it focuses on the expansion of its sovereign data centre footprint across Australia and the attraction of new domestic and international clients.
