Digital Realty appoints new CIO and APAC MD

As the company continues its expansion around the globe, Digital Realty has announced two new high-level appointments.

Gregory Wright will be taking on the role of chief investment officer and will report directly to chief executive officer William Stein, responsible for taking charge of Digital Realty's capital allocation activities.

Wright will be joining the company in January next year, after most recently working as co-head of Americas Real Estate and managing director of the Real Estate, Gaming - Lodging Group at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Stein is confident in what Wright will bring to the role with his experience in providing strategic and financial advice to clients across a broad spectrum of real estate, infrastructure and related sectors – he's even worked with Digital Realty in the past.

"In his capacity as an external advisor, his strategic and financial expertise have been integral to the execution of transactions that have been truly transformational for Digital Realty," says Stein.

"He served as lead M-A advisor on our $1.9 billion acquisition of Telx and our $7.8 billion merger with DuPont Fabros as well as our recent $1.8 billion Ascenty acquisition.  We are confident that his unique combination of financial expertise and intimate familiarity with our business and team will prove invaluable as we continue to build upon this positive momentum in the years ahead."

Wright received a Bachelor's degree in Finance from the University of Maryland and an MBA from the University of Michigan.

"I am honored to be named Digital Realty's Chief Investment Officer, and eager to begin working with this world-class company on a deeper level," says Wright.

"Digital Realty is known as an industry leader, and I look forward to working with my new colleagues to support the strategic expansion of the Digital Realty platform around the globe."

Digital Realty also announced a new Asia Pacific (APAC) appointment, with Mark Smith awarded the role of managing director APAC. Smith will report to chief financial officer Andrew Power and will be charged with overseeing Digital Realty's operations in the  region.

Like Wright, Smith will be joining the company in January 2019, having most recently held the role of Asia managing director for Zettagrid where he developed new growth opportunities throughout the region.

Prior to Zettagrid Smith worked at VMware where he held the role of APAC and Japan managing director for cloud services, responsible for managing the cloud services business that included a network of more than 600 service providers.

"We are excited to welcome Mark Smith to the Digital Realty team," says Power.

"Mark has demonstrated significant business leadership in the Asia Pacific region, including spearheading prominent companies' cloud services growth.  Given his deep institutional expertise, we expect Mark will be instrumental in driving our key strategic initiatives in this critical region."

Smith has also held roles within APAC at CenturyLink and Savvis Communications.

"Digital Realty has established itself as the pre-eminent provider of high-quality data center and colocation solutions across the globe," Smith says.

"I look forward to joining Digital Realty and helping this outstanding global company capitalise on the many opportunities in the rapidly evolving and fast-growing APAC market."