Cloudscene recruits AWS, Netflix, Digital Realty execs to advisory board

Cloudscene, a provider of market intelligence for data center and cloud providers, has appointed representatives from Amazon Web Services, Netflix, Digital Realty, and NEXTDC to its advisory board, as the company aims to continue its expansion.

Amazon Web Services head of network strategy Phil Lin, Netflix director of infrastructure strategy Kevin Epperson, Digital Realty CTO Chris Sharp, and NEXTDC founder Bevan Slattery have joined the board.

Commenting on the appointments, Cloudscene CEO Belle Lajoie says the new members are 'luminaries'.

Each member brings to the table tremendous knowledge to help fulfil our vision of a completely digital procurement experience in the connectivity, cloud, and colocation marketplace," Lajoie says.

AWS head of network strategy Phil Lin has also worked in senior roles for companies such as 21Vianet and Digital Realty Trust. As a private equity investor, he also developed the original business model for Metromedia Fiber Network, oversaw a successful IPO and debt offerings, and led its $2.7 billion acquisition of neutral data center.

"With a great focus on digital transformation, businesses are modernizing and simplifying the way they work to ease the burden of a traditionally fragmented and manual process. Network procurement is no exception. I'm thrilled to be part of the team that is leading this space," comments Lin.

Netflix director of infrastructure strategy Kevin Epperson has previously worked with Microsoft, Cisco Systems, and Level 3 Communications. He has also led network engineering and internet ecosystem subjects at the University of Colorado, Boulder, over the past 20 years.

"Purchasing infrastructure services has always been a time-consuming and complex process. The opportunity for the Cloudscene platform to simplify and streamline the procurement workflow of these services across the industry portfolio of colocation, cloud, and network will enable organizations everywhere to competitively acquire resources to enable their businesses," says Epperson.

Digital Realty CTO Chris Sharp has also worked at Equinix, Qwest Communications, MCI/Verizon Business and Reliance Globalcom.

"Interconnection plays a huge part in bringing together the disparate components of today's enterprise network architectures. It's also critical to facilitating cloud migrations from on-premises infrastructure as demand for digital transformation grows. However, organizations are still faced with navigating a complex and fragmented landscape of connectivity options.

"Cloudscene uniquely provides a global marketplace and centralized platform for interconnection services and I'm looking forward to working with the team to accelerate the industry shift to digital business.

NEXTDC founder Bevan Slattery is also Cloudscene's founder. He has founded Megaport, Superlook, and various other companies.

"I'm excited to be joined by these industry friends who are as passionate as I am about finding a better way for everyone to source and sell connectivity more efficiently," Slattery concludes.