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Speakers

Courtney Popp

Director, Education Programs, Infrastructure Masons

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Courtney Popp

Director, Education Programs, Infrastructure Masons

Courtney joined Infrastructure Masons in 2022 as their EDU Program Manager.

As part of her role, she manages the existing iMasons scholarship program, awarding hundreds of scholarships worldwide and manage and supports iMasons existing Capstone program, supporting teams of students at Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) in year-long projects to introduce them to the digital infrastructure industry in the senior year of their bachelors degree.

She is managing and supporting iMasons emerging program to work with one or more major universities to develop and implement a multi-disciplinary minor-degree program in digital infrastructure and is a visible advocate for, and expert on, the data center industry’s workforce development needs.

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DCD>Next-Gen Workforce Development Program

  • Management & Operations
  • Investment & Markets
  • Invite-only Session
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Cyre Mercedes Denny

Vice Chair - LatinX Community, iMasons & Global Program Director, Schneider Electric

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Cyre Mercedes Denny

Vice Chair - LatinX Community, iMasons & Global Program Director, Schneider Electric

Cyre Mercedes Denny is a Global Program Director for the Cloud & Service Provider Segment of Schneider Electric. She works to translate strategy into actionable goals for performance and growth, helping to implement organization-wide programs, performance management, and annual operations planning that has yielded year over year business growth. Cyre leads a large global team of high-performing professionals collaborating with top executives in setting and driving organizational vision, operational strategy, and resource needs. She has over 15 years of experience working with Fortune 500 Companies, leveraging her unique background and strong leadership abilities to approach business needs from a creative point of view.

Cyre is passionate about education and diversity & inclusion. She was awarded the Schneider Electric Life is on Award for Excellence in Project Execution as well as Schneider’s Dare to Disrupt recognition for establishing the first cross state diversity and inclusion network in the DC, MD, & VA region uniting multiple offices and hundreds of employees to support numerous D&I causes. Cyre is a graduate of Syracuse University, as well as the McKenzie Leadership Program and Hispanics in Technology’s Emerging Executive Program. Cyre served on the board of the Women in Schneider Electric resource group and is currently working towards completing an executive leadership program with the INSEAD Business School while serving as the chair of the Infrastructure Masons LatinX Community and is an avid mentor for the Hispanic Information Technology Executive Council (HITEC) and schools across Virginia and the Bronx, NYC where she is originally from.

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Phillip Koblence

Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer, New York Internet (NYI)

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Phillip Koblence

Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer, New York Internet (NYI)

Phillip Koblence co-founded NYI (www.nyi.net) in 1996. Since then, he has successfully navigated through an ever-shifting infrastructure landscape and grown the company from a single data center in Lower Manhattan to a robust network with executional capabilities in key national and international markets. His leadership over a span of more than twenty years has positioned NYI as a leader in hybrid infrastructure solutions. Part of NYI’s success is due to the strong emphasis placed on building lasting relationships with clients. Through this focus on customer experience, and an ability to cut through complexity and hype, NYI has set the bar in the industry for high-touch infrastructure solutions. Phillip is a frequent speaker at industry events and has been profiled by Data Center Knowledge, TheWHIR, MSPMentor, and NJ BIZ. He has also contributed to CRN and NJ Business Magazine. He is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, with an engineering degree.

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DCD>Debate: Can New York’s network infrastructure still handle the data surge?

  • Telecoms & Connectivity
  • Open Session
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Santiago Suinaga

CEO, Infrastructure Masons

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Santiago Suinaga

CEO, Infrastructure Masons

Santiago Suinaga, Chief Executive Officer of Infrastructure Masons, is a senior multi-cultural executive in the digital infrastructure industry, with 20 years of international business experience in more than 10 countries across data center design, critical operations, M&A, sales, finance and cost management in high growth markets. He most recently served as CEO of KIO Networks Data Centers.

Santiago joined iMasons as a member in 2020, has served as an Advisory Council member, and is a founding member of the iMasons Climate Accord. He previously was Mexico’s local chapter leader and a member of the LatinX Member Resource Group.

Santiago holds a dual MBA degree from the IPADE Business School and the Haas School of Business at the University of California Berkeley. Santiago has a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the Iberoamerican University.

Santiago’s Industry Certifications include Uptime Institute Accredited Tier Designer (ATD) and Accredited Tier Specialist (ATS), C-Net Certified Data Centre Design Professional (CDCDP) and Certified Data Centre Management Professional (CDCMP).

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DCD>Debate: Atlantic overload - Is it time to prepare for a post-East Coast expansion?

  • Data Center Construction
  • Open Session
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Dean Nelson

Chairman & Founder, Infrastructure Masons

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Dean Nelson

Chairman & Founder, Infrastructure Masons

Dean has led $10B in infrastructure projects in 9 countries. His extensive architecture, engineering and operations experience includes 29 years in Hardware, 22 years in Network, 17 years in Infrastructure Software and 17 years in Data Centers. He has produced numerous award winning innovations in mission critical facilities and compute environments. He also holds four US patents.

Dean founded the non-profit professional association to bring infrastructure professionals together to connect, grow and give back. Their goal is to unite the builders of the digital age, one professional at a time.

Formerly the Head of Uber Compute, at Uber. His team was responsible for Metal as a Service (MaaS) technical infrastructure (data center, compute, storage, network and infrastructure software) and business functions serving Uber’s global leading ridesharing business, as well as UberEats, UberFreight, UberHealth, UberForBusiness, and Autonomous vehicle and UberAir development.

Prior to Uber, Dean worked at Ebay Inc for 6 ½ years as the Vice President of Global Foundation Services, which served over 300 million active users enabling over $250Bn of enabled commerce volume annually. At end of his tenure at ebay, his team successfully integrated, then split ebay and paypal infrastructures into two independent internet companies. Prior to ebay, Dean worked at Sun Microsystems for 17 years in various technical, management and executive leadership roles in Manufacturing, Engineering, IT and Real Estate. His final project was the consolidation of Sun’s multi-billion dollar global technical infrastructure portfolio of over 1,000 facilities.

Dean is creator of the Digital Service Efficiency methodology, the first miles per gallon measurement for technical infrastructure, used to measure ebay.com as a single system. He served as the Chair of theTechnology Business Management Council High Tech Workgroup, and Chairman & Founder of Data Center Pulse in 2009 – an exclusive datacenter owner community with over 9,000 members in 100 countries. In 2016, Dean founded Infrastructure Masons, an industry association where infrastructure professionals connect, grow and give back. Dean was identified by SearchDatacenter.com as one of the top five peoplewho changed the data center. Dean is also the recipient of Sun’s prestigious Innovation Award, Modular DC Deployment award and Best DC Design award from Uptime Institute as well as the Operational Excellence and Infrastructure Trailblazer awards from The TBM Council and Outstanding Contributions to the Data Center Industry award from Data Center Dynamics.

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This Co-located Member Summit, hosted by iMasons, will be held prior to the official opening of DCD>Connect | New York. Join the iMasons Member Community to discuss the latest topics within the digital infrastructure industry.

iMasons Agenda

  • 08:45 | Session doors open
  • 09:00 | Introduction
  • 09:05 | iMasons 2025 Annual report preview / outcomes
  • 09:20 | Panel: Industry challenges - AI, perception, power
  • 09:45 | Panel: Industry education partnership
  • 10:00 | Member workshop
  • 10:30 | Member report outs
  • 11:00 | Closing, wrap up and photo
  • 11:10 | End