Equinix, one of the most prominent digital infrastructure companies in the world and a major player in the global data center market, has just announced a huge change in its leadership. Charles Meyers, who currently serves as President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), will transition to the role of Executive Chairman. Google Cloud Go-to-Market President Adaire Fox-Martin will take over from him as part of what Equinix calls a planned leadership transition that will become effective by late Q2.
“Today, I am excited to announce my transition, in late Q2, into the role of Executive Chairman at Equinix and the appointment of Adaire Fox-Martin as our next President and CEO,” said Meyer in a LinkedIn post, adding, “It has been an immense privilege to lead Equinix over the past 6 years and I am very grateful to our board for supporting my desired timeline for this transition. I have poured myself into this role and now am excited to have the opportunity to pour more of myself into my family, while still being actively engaged with the business and supporting Adaire in this next chapter of the amazing Equinix journey.”
Meyer has spent 14 years at Equinix. He joined the company in 2010 and was appointed CEO in 2018. Showcasing his contribution to the company Equinix said in a press release, “During his tenure, he has shaped the company’s successful strategy, extending Platform Equinix to more than 70 markets across 33 countries, accelerating the company’s global interconnection leadership and evolving the platform to support hybrid and multi-cloud as the clear architecture of choice. Over this time, the company has enjoyed a 6x increase in revenue and added more than $80 billion in equity value.”
Meanwhile, Fox-Martin is also an industry veteran with over 25 years of experience behind her. Prior to Google, Fox-Martin held senior global positions at some of the world’s foremost technology and software companies, notably SAP and Oracle.
“In today’s dynamic digital landscape, Equinix has uniquely amassed global reach, highly differentiated ecosystems, strong partner relationships, and an innovative range of product and service offerings — collectively forming a robust and future-proofed platform to address diverse customer challenges,” said Fox-Martin, adding, “Coupled with my passionate belief in the vision, mission and values of Equinix, I am excited to leverage my experience in driving business transformations and building for scale to drive continued innovation and growth at Equinix.”
But that’s not the only shuffle taking place in Equinix’s leadership. Peter Van Camp, currently Executive Chairman, will step away from his formal responsibilities as a Board member to take the role of Special Advisor to the Board.
“I am very proud of the work that our board has put into our succession planning and delighted to have landed on a path that is highly responsive to the needs of the business and those of our leadership,” said Van Camp, adding, “We have had tremendous success with our leadership model and as I step into an advisory role with the company and hand the Executive Chairman role to Charles, I do so with immense optimism that this executive team will enable us to unlock the enormous opportunity ahead.”
Neither Equinix, nor Meyers or even Van Camp offered any explanation for why the reshuffle was necessitated.
Founded in Silicon Valley in 1998 as a vendor-neutral multitenant data center provider, Equinix has data centers in the Americas, Europe, Middle East, Africa and the Asia Pacific, and employs over 12,000 people across the world. It serves clients from diverse industries such as finance, manufacturing, retail, transportation, government, healthcare and education.
