What inspired you to become an engineer?
It had a lot to do with my character as I prefer the analytical to the abstract. When I started my first engineering degree at the University of Bath in the UK, I felt like I was signing up for an inspiring journey, as well as a future career path. It was a multidisciplinary course geared around the built environment and it taught me, from day one, the meaning of collaboration.
How did you get involved in the mission critical sector?
Today, young engineers can go straight into the data centre industry. However, my career began in the early 1990s – when data centres were still in their infancy. Back then, a chance to work on a computer room project was only with larger corporations such as banks and insurers that had a demand for data storage. The first design project I worked on was a mainframe computer equipment room for a global financial company at Canary Wharf in London – the beginning of mission critical space in the built environment. In 2009, I joined WSP through an acquisition and continued working on data centre projects. Around 2019, my sole focus turned to mission critical and on our hyperscale and colocation projects in Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong.
What is exciting about working in the data centre industry?
Change in our sector is driven by the IT environment. As we know, IT is rapidly changing. Therefore, how we design and deliver data centres for our clients is also changing. As the needs of our clients evolve to suit their own requirements, and those of their tenants, it’s our job to make sure their data centres are versatile and adaptable with flexibility built-in to anticipate for even further technological advancements.
