Tesh Durvasula

CEO of Africa Data Centres at Liquid Intelligent Technologies

Tesh Durvasula is an experienced technology and real estate industry executive with a 25-year track record of successful leadership and value generation in the digital infrastructure sector. He has broad experience through all elements of business, including finance, real estate, development, operations, technology, marketing, and sales.

Durvasula served in a variety of executive roles at CyrusOne initially as the company’s chief commercial officer, responsible for sales, marketing, and strategy. He drove value for the company and its investors through a combination of rapid sales growth and mergers and acquisitions. Durvasula led the acquisitions of data centre providers Sentinel and Cervalis, as well as the data centre assets of the financial trading campus of CME Group - the three transactions had a combined value of over $1 billion. His strong record of value creation and scaling the organisation, helped Cyrus go from an initial investment of $525 million to its eventual outcome, acquisition by KKR for $15 billion.

He was then appointed president of Europe for the company, where he oversaw the company’s expansion into England, Ireland, France and Germany, which saw the organisation grow into one of the largest publicly traded REIT’s in the US. Finally, Durvasula was appointed CyrusOne’s chief executive officer, and during his tenure at the company, annual revenue grew from $221 million in 2012 to over $1 billion in 2020.

Throughout his career he has specialised in implementing growth strategies for internet infrastructure businesses. Prior to joining CyrusOne, he was chief marketing and business officer for Quality Technology Services, which IPO’d as a REIT, QTS Data Centers. At QTS Durvasula created and executed the company’s go-to-market strategy, paving the way for evolution from privately held company to equity-backed organisation to IPO, and then eventually acquired by Blackstone for $10 billion in 2021.

He was previously chief marketing and business officer for Telx, a colocation and interconnection provider. He joined the company by way of acquisition, when Telx and the REIT Digital Realty Trust acquired the interconnection businesses and data centre business, respectively, of NYC-Connect, a New York City based data centre and interconnection provider founded by Durvasula. Before founding NYC-Connect, he held management positions at Abovenet, Sprint, and Metromedia Fiber Networks.

Durvasula is a graduate of Syracuse University, with EMBA work at Columbia University and Stanford University. He lives with his wife and three sons in Greenwich, Connecticut, where he has been a youth football coach for over ten years and has been involved in charities dedicated to homelessness, and youth athletics.

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Timeline

  • CEO of Africa Data Centres

    Current role

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