Name: Equinix CEO: This data center giant does 'exceptionally well' even in downturns
Uploaded: 2022-05-20
Duration: 7 min 56 s
Description: CEO Charles Meyers says business is booming thanks to surge in digital transformation.

CEO Charles Meyers says business is booming thanks to surge in digital transformation. 

Equinix CEO: This data center giant does "exceptionally well" even in downturns

Leadership

Charles, thank you so much for joining us here at Fortune. It's great to see you to talk about your company Equinix. Uh you know, you do business with the who's who of the Fortune 500 companies like amazon google walmart, Just to name a few of them tell our viewers what Equinix does and why you are the go to source for these big companies, Why do they come to you? You know, we have the luxury of really serving as you said, some of the great companies in the world and we, we operate as a set of about 202 140 data centers around the world, 30 different countries, um 60 different markets and uh those companies really put their infrastructure inside of those facilities to unlock the promise of digital. Um and we're helping him do that every day and we were probably a lot of things in your everyday life are enabled by equinox, whether it's streaming on netflix or trading stocks on NASDAQ or doing zoom calls. All those things happened from inside of economics and you have been growing super fast. Your revenues earnings are very strong so far this year and you have the biggest bookings in your company's history. What's driving all this growth? We did in fact 3rd, 3rd consecutive quarter of record booking, 77th consecutive quarter of revenue growth. Um And what's driving it I think is again the promise of digital, digital is unlocking huge opportunities for companies and you know, virtually every sector of the economy is transforming digitally and that's really what's driving our business? Well, we know that during the pandemic, it accelerated this digital transformation by many companies. Are you still benefiting from that trend? Absolutely. I think we're hearing every day that customers across every vertical, across every part of the world are thinking about the importance of digital transformation. And we play a very unique role in helping them with that. How they think about placing and building digital infrastructure, particularly in a very cloud first world. In fact, we talk about ourselves as the platform where the world comes together, really enabling the innovations that enrich our life, our work and our planet. Um, and that's the that's the unique role that we play. Well. What are you hearing from your customers and the Ceo to run those big companies that we mentioned a little earlier. Uh to what extent are you hearing that they're committed to investing in more data centers as demand for data growth? Yeah, we're definitely hearing that commitment and it's showing up in the in the demand in our business. And so in fact, I was I was talking to some analysts just today and they were saying that 76% of the people that they interview say they're going to elevate and increase their investment in digital even under a very challenging set of macroeconomic conditions. And so we're definitely seeing that commitment from Ceo, you recently told your investors that you're optimistic about more growth in 2022. But that was before the Federal Reserve policymakers increased interest rates, how to higher interest rates impact your company's growth plans. Does it help or does it hurt? I don't think it has a particularly meaningful impact on us. We're quite insulated from that, but all of our debt is is fixed rate in nature, um you know, and and candidly, you know, uh interest rates are still at pretty low historical levels. And so we're going to continue to allocate capital to a lot of growth opportunities that we see out there. How about some of the other issues that are hanging over the economy, whether it's about getting supplies, the supply chain problems, inflation, worries about a recession, how might this impact your business if at all? Yeah, I I mean, I think that every company is dealing with some of these macro factors, inflation, supply chain Ukraine et cetera. And but I think that, you know, the size, the scale, the global reach, the diversity of our business, and I think most importantly, the underlying importance that digital has two companies um is really, you know, continuing to fuel our business. And and frankly over the over the many years, our business has performed exceptionally well. Even in economic downturns, let's talk now about the issue of sustainability. Um as you know, this is annual meeting season and shareholders these days are much more vocal about the importance of things like climate change, about sustainability. And so C. E. O. S. Are probably gonna be getting a lot of questions on on these issues, I understand that you've made This issue a big priority at Equinox, tell us what you're doing about it. Absolute. You know, the data center industry broadly speaking and we as the leader in that space, are one of the most significant users of power on the planet. Uh and we feel like we've got a commitment to do that responsibly. And so um it's about not only about, you know, doing good, you know, and from a business perspective, but also doing the right thing. And so we're very committed to that. We're committed to being 100% renewable energy. We're committed to climate neutral by 2030. We're the first in the industry to make that commitment. Um and we're investing significantly in in a variety of sustainability strategies. Yes, so we know about your goal to be carbon neutral by 2030. What are you doing to get there? A variety of things. Were improving the energy efficiency of our existing facilities, investing in new technologies for for new facilities um and uh and also investing in renewable energy of various sorts Around the world, ideally sourcing energy that's renewable from the beginning and where we can't do that um buying offsets through purchase power agreements and those kind of things overall looking at your big goal for 2030. How's the progress so far terrific. So we we we now are over 95% renewable energy. Um and um and then are offsetting the rest of that with with our power purchase agreements and um you know, the and increasing the efficiency, we increased about 6% last year. And so progress has been really terrific. So are you saying you're ahead of your goal for 2030? Yeah, I think we're absolutely on track and in fact, I think we're gonna need to continue to raise the bar on those commitments over time. We just, you know, put put forward a set of science based targets, which I think is sort of, you know, leading edge and and we're going to continue to, you know, you know, elevate those commitments, Charles is impressive to hear about your passion on sustainability. I mean, ever since you became Ceo four years ago, you had leadership on on these issues. So what more would you like to see from C E O S and other business leaders to go beyond just setting a goal, but really making their commitments a reality, What would you like to see? Yeah, I mean, I think that it's, it also needs to extend to all dimensions of sustainability, environmental social, um and I think setting those objectives, setting a tone from the top and also really being uh you know, consistently concerned with the broad set of stakeholders that you serve well beyond your shareholders and and you know, those that are looking to drive profits. I talk about being in service to as a company and I always say it starts by being in service to each other um and by being in service to each other. We can be in service to our customers to our shareholders and to the communities in which we operate and you know our objective is to leave the planet better than we found it. Well, let me pick up on that because here at fortune we talk a lot about leadership and how the job of Ceo has changed so much in the last couple of years. Our expectations, what we want from CEO has really changed on the leadership front. What do you think are the key characteristics of a good leader, especially when it comes to solving these difficult environmental issues. Yeah I think probably empathy is at the top of the list. Um and you know you talk about other perhaps skills that maybe people would think about as being a Ceo in terms of financial acumen or strategic um you know capabilities or those kind of things and of course those things are necessary in running a company. But I think you know one thing we've learned over the last few years is being empathetic, being, being able to listen and understand and put yourself in the shoes of others I think is a is a primary leadership characteristic that C. E. O. S of today need to need to have