Geri John

On a personal level, I think my personality has been key. I've always been somebody who's wanting to learn, wanting to grow, and wanting to get things done. That combination has worked really well for me, especially the get-things-done attitude combined with the desire to learn. That's allowed me a platform to keep pushing and asking and growing. From a professional perspective, I've also been really picky about where and who and what companies and organizations I want to work for, because that has been key to my growth. You grow and you win as a team, you don't win as an individual typically. So investing in and understanding that, and ensuring that I'm bringing the most to the table but also getting a lot out of it, has been crucial to my success.

First, don't be scared away by the fact that it's still very male-dominated. You need to understand that there's so much potential within this industry. If you're a marketing person with great communication skills, there are roles within data centers that aren't traditional marketing roles, but you can use those skill sets to learn and grow. People don't realize you need strong finance roles, really strong financial counterparts, and really strong project management in data centers. It's all these skill sets that people would have that they just take for granted, thinking 'what would I do with it?' because they're just thinking about servers. They're not thinking about all the infrastructure and support roles. That's honestly why I'm part of the board, because I want to get the word out there about why people need to pay attention to the data center industry and what it can bring. We actually go to colleges and do career days to help spread this message.

The race for AI is definitely very challenging right now. Everyone is trying to build faster and grow faster, so being part of a team that can think on your feet and assist your customers to understand how they can get to where they need to be is a challenge everyone's facing. Those of us who do well are those who are able to influence that. It's not about pushing your own agenda, because that's never going to work. It's truly about taking the time to understand what the customer wants and needs, and then challenging them to maybe think about things differently to enable that. On the opportunities side, I think partnerships in the field are really key. The acceleration to growth is going to require resiliency in your supply chain to be able to do what you say you're going to do. But to do that well, you have to have the right partners. So investing in understanding and being very thoughtful about crafting who you're going to partner with, whether it's mechanical subs, electrical subs, subcomponents, whatever that may be, is critical. What does that look like to give you the strongest possible premise to be the strongest vendor out there?

In the data center industry, which is definitely a male-dominated industry, I think it's really important to bring and have more women here, because I think what we bring to the table is truly a whole different perspective of how to get things done. Especially in an environment where we're forced to be scrappy, we can think on our feet, multitask, build relationships, understand perspectives, and negotiate differently. All of those things are competitive advantages that I think women bring into a space that we take for granted. Integrity is also super important to me. I believe in being thoughtful about the organizations I work with and ensuring that I'm bringing the most to the table while also getting a lot out of it, because you grow and win as a team, not as an individual.