Data center builder Digital Realty has appointed a new chief technology officer and VP for strategy.

Chris Sharp, the new CTO, joins from Equinix where he developed interconnect solutions, while the strategy vice president Philip Lin comes from Chinese data center services provider 21Vianet. Both appointments are effective immediately, and both will report to Jarrett Appleby, chief operating officer of Digital Realty.

Realty appointments

Both men bring considerable industry ‘weight’ to their new jobs, Before Equinix, Sharp worked at Qwest Communications, MCI/Verizon Business aBnd and Reliance Globalcom. Lin meanwhile served as executive vice president of strategy and development at 21Vianet.

Lin’s appointment underlines Digital’s plans to expand in Asia, which the company discussed with us in June. At 21Vianet, he oversaw the development of a data center giant in China (where Digital has no presence) and across the rest of South East Asia. 

Meanwhile, Chris Sharp has worked on the cloud ecosystem within Equjinix’s estate, which Digital Realty will have been eyeing jealously as it expands into colocation through moves such as its recent acquisition of Telx.

“Chris’s guidance will be instrumental as we leverage Telx’s cloud and networking ecosystem capabilities across the robust cloud compute-engine presence within our global data center campus footprint,” said William Stein, Digital Realty CEO. 

In July Digital Realty bought colocation provider Telx for $1.86bn. A month before that Equinix announced it was purchasing TelecityGroup.

San Fransisco based Digital Realty is a real estate investment trust (REIT) that builds, buys and rents out space wholesale to be used as centers, but has been increasing its retail colocation business.