FLOW Digital Infrastructure, a company that develops and operates data center and digital infrastructure facilities in Asia Pacific, recently made major changes to its top brass. It appointed Sanjay Goel as Chief Executive Officer, Andrew Oon as Chief Commercial Officer and Onno Reijgersberg as Chief Business Operations Officer.
Established in 2021 by PAG, a private asset manager for institutional investors, FLOW has developed six data center facilities across Asia Pacific with 170MW+ of current and near-term planned capacity (IT load). W.Media caught up with Sanjay Goel, who will lead the company’s next phase of growth and is responsible for driving its overall strategic direction and execution of its business plan.
Goel brings over 30 years of diverse business leadership experience with extensive expertise in the telecommunications, information technology and engineering industries. He has held several senior positions in Asia and Europe, most recently at American Tower where he served as Executive Vice President & President for Asia Pacific, leading its business in the APAC region. Before that, he served as President of the Global Services business group and Operations at Nokia globally, where he was responsible for strategy, P&L management and Global Services business operations across more than 100 countries.
Among broader plans, Goel told us that Japan will remain a priority market for FLOW. Here’s the complete interview:
What is it about the data center industry that excites you the most?
Sanjay Goel: The data center industry is at the forefront of cutting-edge technology and plays a transformative role in digitalization and cloud adoption at scale both for businesses as well as consumers. This presents immense opportunities to shape the future of the digital infrastructure landscape. I am deeply passionate about fostering deep customer relationships and building high-performing teams. Ultimately, the data center industry embodies the broader benefits of digitalization—empowering innovation, supporting economic growth, and delivering tangible societal benefits.
What drew you to FLOW, and what is your vision for the next phase of growth for your organization?
Sanjay Goel: We already have a large footprint in Asia Pacific so it’s about scaling the FLOW platform. In the next phase of growth, our priorities are to establish an industry-leading center of excellence for design and engineering, accelerate time-to-market for our solutions, enhance our delivery and operational capabilities with a strong focus on quality and sustainability, and forge deeper ties with our hyperscale and enterprise customers, channel partners and system integrators.
What is your strategy specifically with respect to an ever evolving and dynamic technology like AI?
Sanjay Goel: AI is transforming the way we conduct business and the way we consume. But AI adoption is still in its early stages. There’s vast growth potential ahead. Our strategy is both customer-centric and innovation-driven. This means developing tailored products that support the significant demand surge driven by high density workloads, which require specialized infrastructure in terms of power, cooling, and low-latency connectivity. At the same time, we are proactively leveraging AI and other advanced technologies to enhance our operational efficiency and service delivery across the value chain. By integrating AI-driven analytics, automation, and predictive maintenance for example, we can optimize resource utilization, and improve energy efficiency. This dual approach enables us to better serve our customers and stakeholders, and future-proofs our infrastructure, ensuring resilience and scalability.
PAG recently raised a new US$ 4billion fund that has a major focus on data center investments, and at least 25-30 percent of that has been earmarked for Japan alone. What are your plans for Japan?
Sanjay Goel: Japan has always been our home market since PAG started its business in Japan in 1997 and has built good relationships with a large number of corporates over the course of 27 years. That’s a solid foundation for data center business. We recently broke ground for a colocation data center in central Tokyo with a total size of about 30MW, and we have other sites fully commissioned and leased. We will continue to double down our build-up in Japan as a priority market. This includes deepening our engagement with hyperscalers, strengthening our product and execution capabilities, and leveraging PAG’s strengths in land sourcing and relationships with the ecosystem (partners and contractors alike) to expand our presence.
What is your plan of action vis-a-vis setting and achieving ESG goals, specifically with respect to adoption for renewable energy?
Sanjay Goel: As a developer and operator of data centers, FLOW embraces a thoughtful and proactive investment philosophy aimed at minimizing the carbon footprint of our facilities throughout their lifecycle. Central to this strategy is our focus on leveraging renewable energy to power our data centers. Our design and engineering philosophy incorporates recognized green building certifications like LEED and CASBEE to ensure our facilities meet stringent environmental standards. We also implement initiatives to reduce energy and water consumption and continuously optimize Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE).
What are some emerging markets you have your eye on?
Sanjay Goel: Asia Pacific presents a diverse and rapidly evolving digital infrastructure market, with both developed and emerging economies exhibiting significant demand. Many studies suggest that by 2030 there will be at least 800MW unaddressed demand across growth-engine markets in Asia Pacific. AI adoption, as one of the key drivers for demand, is just at the beginning in Asia Pacific. We see a significant demand deficit in both developed countries (such as Japan, Australia, Korea) and emerging markets (ASEAN and India). Asia Pacific is nonhomogeneous in terms of regulatory landscape, entry barriers, customer mix, market conditions, to name a few. Where can we create the most value? Focusing on markets where PAG has well-established networks and resources will add unique competitive advantages to our existing capabilities. In addition to Japan, which is our top priority market, we are building a pan-Asia platform with multiple market presence.
What are some of the professional values you hold dear, and how do you hope to leave your mark?
Sanjay Goel: The values that you inculcate within an organization act as a moral compass that shapes good organizational culture. I am deeply committed to creating value for all stakeholders by ensuring we take ownership over delivering what we have committed, as well as maintaining a strong customer-centric focus in all facets of the business. Continuously investing in a culture that is people-oriented, respects trust, collaboration, transparency and open communication is a priority. In today’s rapidly evolving environment, agility to change is another key value with the ability to maintain intellectual curiosity to keep learning and listening.