CyrusOne has appointed John Hatem as its new Chief Executive Officer and a member of the company’s Board, effective immediately.

Hatem succeeds Eric Schwartz, who is stepping down after four years in the role. Schwartz will work alongside his successor during the handover as part of the company’s long-term succession plans.

The appointment represents an internal promotion for Hatem, who joined CyrusOne in 2011 and has since held a number of senior positions across the business.

He most recently served as President, where he was responsible for global sales and procurement, as well as design, engineering and construction across the United States.

Before that, Hatem was named Chief Operating Officer in 2020, overseeing areas including design, construction, IT and operations. During his time with CyrusOne, he has also led functions covering land and power, procurement and sales.

The change in leadership comes as data centre operators face growing demand from hyperscale customers and increasingly power-intensive AI workloads, which are placing greater pressure on developers to deliver new capacity more quickly.

CyrusOne currently operates more than 60 data centres across the United States, Europe and Japan, providing colocation, interconnection and build-to-suit facilities for hyperscale and enterprise customers.

“The team at CyrusOne has built something special: a company with the engineering discipline, operational expertise, and talented personnel to deliver world-class data center capacity at the speed and scale that our customers expect,” said Hatem. 

“I have never been more excited about what lies ahead. As workloads become more power-intensive and demand for faster delivery grows, our structural advantages have never mattered more.”

Waldemar Szlezak, Partner at KKR, and Will Brilliant, Partner at Global Infrastructure Partners, said Hatem’s experience across the company made him the right person to lead its next stage of development.

“In his nearly 15 years with CyrusOne, John has become the heart and soul of the company, having established a strong track record of building outstanding teams, carrying out winning strategies, and leading operations that must continue to move at the speed of technological innovation,” commented Szlezak and Brilliant. 

“He has earned the trust of many of the world’s leading enterprises, the local communities in which CyrusOne operates, and his teammates. The opportunity for CyrusOne has never been greater and we are confident that John is the right person to guide the company forward. No one understands the company’s customers, capabilities, and potential more deeply than he does.”

Outgoing CEO Schwartz joined CyrusOne at a time of significant expansion for both the company and the wider data centre market. The business experienced record revenue growth and profitability during his tenure, alongside what it described as the largest customer expansion in its history.

“It has been a privilege to lead CyrusOne and I could not be more confident in John’s leadership to take the company into its next phase of growth,” said Schwartz.