Executive Leadership

As Executive Vice President, Chief Operating Officer, John is responsible for global operations, design, construction, and information technology.  For the past twenty years, he has been at the forefront of data center design and innovation. He has the experience and enthusiasm for innovating and deploying the next generation of sustainable cloud infrastructure in the United States, Europe, and globally. By adopting a manufacturing approach developed in conjunction with some of the world’s largest technology companies and service providers, John leads teams that build and operate data center infrastructure to meet the specific speed-to-market and financial needs of hyperscale cloud and enterprise companies.

John started his career as a network operations engineer, working with some of the world’s largest financial companies, including JPMorgan Chase & Co. (formerly Bear Stearns & Co. Inc.), Deutsche Bank, and Morgan Stanley. As managing director at Bear Stearns, he was responsible for the strategic design, planning, and control of vital data centers worldwide. Before joining CyrusOne in 2011, John served as the director of design and construction for ConceptCSI Global Data Center Solutions. One of the preeminent construction firms in the industry dedicated to designing, planning, and constructing mission-critical facilities.

Michael Schafer serves as Chief Financial Officer, Interim, responsible for CyrusOne’s accounting, finance, tax, and investor relations functions. Michael joined CyrusOne in December 2013, most recently serving as Senior Vice President, Finance, with responsibility for capital markets, investor relations, financial planning and analysis (FP&A) and treasury activities.

Before joining CyrusOne, Michael worked for Commercial Metals Company, with responsibility for international capital markets and managing the company’s FX and commodities hedging programs. Prior to Commercial Metals, Michael spent more than a decade at American Airlines with roles in corporate finance and banking, with primary responsibility for capital raising and managing the company’s fuel hedging program. While at American, he also held roles in corporate development, FP&A and domestic yield management.

Michael earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from Duke University and a Master of Business Administration degree from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Our general counsel, Robert Jackson, champions a commercially-oriented, “focus on what matters” approach to business, fueled by a relentless passion for real estate investment, development and value creation. His journey as a business lawyer, trusted advisor, and real estate executive, provides a unique perspective that complements our diverse executive team. A versatile leader, Robert has a track record of successfully creating and executing strategies for public and private companies in connection with legal services, strategic transactions, corporate governance, accounting & finance, information technology, risk management and human resources.  He is a frequent lecturer and speaker on legal issues as they relate to public companies and real estate investment.

Since joining our leadership team, Robert has focused on redefining the company’s strategy for legal services and risk management. The goal – to optimize internal and external resources to support the delivery of comprehensive, scalable, and difference-making solutions to support the company’s growth objectives globally. Recent key accomplishments include (i) recruiting a core internal team of established legal professionals to support customer contracting, site selection, construction, M&A and capital markets; (ii) designing and implementing law firm engagement guidelines and reporting requirements to provide transparency and accountability; and (iii) developing a strategic plan for the company’s environmental, health and safety program.

As Executive Vice President, Chief Sales Officer, Brent is responsible for CyrusOne’s global go-to-market teams and client relationships. Before this appointment, Brent served as CyrusOne’s Executive Vice President of Engineering, and Executive Vice President of Strategy. Brent joined CyrusOne in 2016, and during his tenure, he held a key leadership role in all of CyrusOne’s global expansion efforts.

Before joining CyrusOne, Brent served as Senior Vice President of sales for Compass Datacenters. Brent also worked with Digital Realty for more than six years, most recently serving as Senior Vice President of sales, where he was responsible for overseeing the global go-to-market strategy and client/channel relationship management. Previously in his career, Brent had taken on sales leadership roles at Vettro Corporation, Entrust Inc., and Nortel Networks. Brent received a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from Texas A&M University at College Station and a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of North Texas.

In his role as Executive Vice President, Managing Director, Europe, Matt is responsible for driving the growth of CyrusOne’s operations in Europe and delivering the very best in data center excellence to CyrusOne’s hyperscale and enterprise customers worldwide.

Matt oversees regional business strategy and an experienced European Management Team to deliver upon site selection, construction, design, operations, finance, HR, legal, technology, sales, and marketing across an operational and development portfolio with an IT power capacity of more than 200 MW in London, Frankfurt, Dublin, Amsterdam and Paris.

Since joining CyrusOne in August 2018 Matt has been pivotal in authenticating the CyrusOne brand in Europe and deploying significant capital across the new development portfolio; more than doubling the European footprint and diversifying the customer base.

Matt joined CyrusOne following its acquisition of Zenium Data Centers where he was Managing Director and a founding member. Prior to Zenium, he was an Executive Director at CBRE, leading the Corporate Outsourcing function in EMEA.

Matt has extensive relationships in the corporate community and a unique understanding of the property investment dynamics of data centers. He is a committed and regular contributor to industry thought leadership through participation in industry forums.

Effective partnership and a commitment to a sustainable future is fundamental to CyrusOne’s growth strategy in Europe. Matt is honored to sit on the European Data Center Association’s (EUDCA) Board of Directors and to be a member of techUK’s Data Center Council. He is committed to strengthening relationships with key policy stakeholders and elevating standards for best practices in the data center industry across Europe; offering his experience, support, and leadership to educate and encourage best practices in data center policy in Europe and around the world.