Data centre real estate investment trust (REIT) Equinix (NASDAQ: EQIX) has promoted Jon Lin to the position of EVP & General Manager of Data Center Services, effective immediately.

In this newly created role, the executive will be responsible for driving the performance of the data centre services portfolio, developing and leading execution of a coordinated strategy across the business aimed at ensuring sustained growth and enhanced operating leverage from the operator’s interconnected colocation franchise.

He will have direct responsibility for product management and the associated software engineering teams supporting this portfolio of offerings.

Lin has also been tasked with partnering with Equinix’s global and regional leadership to orchestrate resources across the company to: continue the expansion of Equinix’s global footprint; extend the company’s ecosystems; and drive scaling and efficiency programs in pursuit of Equinix’s long-term margin expansion targets.

Charles Meyers, President and Chief Executive Officer, Equinix, said: “Our Data Center Services portfolio continues to be the cornerstone of Platform Equinix and is seeing strong momentum as customers implement hybrid and multicloud as the architecture of choice.

“To position Equinix for the future, we plan to continue to simplify, automate and optimise our business and drive even better cross-functional execution across our increasingly global platform. Jon has delivered extraordinary results as the President of our Americas business and is a great choice to lead and implement our strategy to extend our global market leadership in interconnected colocation, allowing us to scale our business, delight our customers and enhance our operating leverage.”

Lin has held various roles since joining Equinix in 2009, most recently as President, Americas. In this role, he was responsible for the regional management, strategy and growth plan for Equinix in the Americas region, including operations in Brazil, Canada, Colombia and the US.

Previously, he served as Vice President, Americas Regional Corporate Development, where he was a leader in one of the company’s largest transactions – the US$3.6 billion acquisition of 29 data centres from Verizon in 2017.

In addition to managing the integration of the Verizon data centre assets into Equinix, he also played a leading role in Equinix’s acquisition of Infomart Dallas in 2018.

Before joining the Equinix Corporate Development team, Lin was Senior Director of Regional P&L, managing the Equinix Americas Southeast region.

Prior to Equinix, Lin served as Director of the Advanced Solutions Group at Tata Communications. He also worked in a variety of roles at Verizon Enterprise Solutions, including Product Strategy, Sales and Consulting Services.

Commenting on his new role, Lin said: “Equinix continues to be a trusted resource for our customers and partners as they prioritize digital transformation as a critical business priority. I am honoured to take on this exciting role and work with our talented teams across the globe to define and execute our strategy to fuel growth and extend our market leadership.

“The strength of our global platform and our commitment to continuous innovation enables us to deliver distinctive and durable value to our customers as the demand for digital infrastructure evolves to being more distributed, more cloud-connected and more ecosystem-dependent than ever before.”

Equinix will hold its quarterly conference call on Wednesday, February 16 at 5:30 p.m. EST (2:30 p.m. PST).