Cologix Names Bill Fathers CEO and Chairman

There’s new leadership at Cologix, where industry veteran Bill Fathers has been named Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, succeeding Grant van Rooyen. The executive change comes a year after Cologix was acquired by private equity firm Stonepeak Infrastructure Partners, where Fathers has been a key player in the company’s data center strategy.

Cologix is a colocation and interconnection provider that operates 24 data centers across nine markets in the United States and Canada. The company is notable for its focus on carrier neutral facilities and meet-me rooms in connectivity hubs in regional markets, with facilities in Minneapolis, New Jersey, Jacksonville, Lakeland, Fla. and Columbus, Ohio in the U.S. and Canadian sites in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver.

“Cologix is a critical component of North America’s digital infrastructure,” said Fathers. “Our combination of cloud and interconnection hubs, advanced switching fabric, and fiber networks positions the company to become the epicenter of new and emerging ecosystems while continuing to ride the wave of enterprise IT transformation and cloud adoption. This is an incredibly exciting time to be taking on this role and continuing to build out this industry-leading platform.”

Experience in Interconnection

Fathers brings a breadth of experience to his new position. Prior to being appointed Cologix CEO, Bill was most recently Executive Vice President of Cloud Services at VMware and previously served as President of Savvis, a public data center and cloud infrastructure provider. He was also a member of the Board of Directors of Telx, a leading cross-connection and colocation platform. Interconnection was a key emphasis of the colocation businesses at both Savvis and Telx.

Most recently, Fathers has served as a Senior Operating Partner responsible for communications infrastructure investments at Stonepeak, which was founded in 2011, and has built a portfolio of companies in the infrastructure sector, including natural gas, solar energy and microgrids. It also is an investor in  Vertical Bridge, a wireless communications firm that owns or leases more than 7,500 wireless and broadcast systems on towers and rooftops.

Stonepeak manages more than $6.4 billion in capital for its investors, and has said that it may invest up to $500 million to accelerate the growth of the Cologix platform.

“We are pleased to welcome Bill to the Cologix management team,” said Brian McMullen, Cologix Director and Senior Managing Director of Stonepeak Infrastructure Partners. “He has a well-established track record of delivering organic and inorganic growth across numerous communications infrastructure businesses and driving value creation for stakeholders. Bill’s deep sector knowledge and operating expertise in the data center space will be absolutely critical in helping to drive the next stage of growth at Cologix.”

“We would like to express our deep gratitude to Grant van Rooyen for his contribution since he founded the company. We wish him well in all of his future endeavors,” stated Trent Vichie, Cologix Director and Co-Founder and Senior Managing Director of Stonepeak Infrastructure Partners.