Cassava Technologies has appointed Tesh Durvasula as CEO.

Cassava Technologies has appointed Tesh Durvasula as the new chief executive officer of Africa Data Centres (ADC) effective 7 February 2022.

He replaces Stephane Duproz as CEO of the company.

According to the company, Durvasula will be responsible for driving growth, innovation and strategy of Cassava Technologies’ data centres to meet Africa’s accelerating demand for data and digital infrastructure.

Cassava Technologies notes that Durvasula is an experienced technology and real estate industry executive with a 25-year track record of successful leadership and value generation in the digital infrastructure sector.

He will lead the ADC team as the organisation rapidly expands its footprint of hyperscale data centres throughout Africa with a plan to add an additional 10 data centres in the top 10 economic centres in Africa.

Strive Masiyiwa, Cassava Technologies executive chairman and founder, says: “At Cassava Technologies, our objective is to empower individuals and businesses with technology, based on our vision of a digitally connected future that leaves no African behind.

"Through our digital infrastructure and services, we are empowering our customers to fully participate in the fast-growing digital economy in Africa. Expanding our data centres footprint and management capacity is key to our strategy.”

Hardy Pemhiwa, president and CEO of Cassava Technologies, says: “We are delighted to welcome Tesh into the Cassava Technologies family and look forward to leveraging on his extensive industry experience as he leads our data centres business into its next phase of rapid expansion to meet the increased demand for data centre capacity in Africa.

“Following the conclusion of our $300 million funding with the US IDFC [United States International Development Finance Corporation] and the recent $90 million equity investment by IFC [International Finance Corporation], it was imperative that we scale up our management team.”

Prior to joining ADC, Durvasula served in a variety of executive roles at CyrusOne, culminating in his appointment as the chief executive officer of the company.

Before that he served as president of Europe operations for CyrusOne, overseeing CyrusOne’s expansion into England, Ireland, France and Germany.

“The potential to grow digital infrastructure is bigger in Africa than anywhere else and this will provide a number of opportunities for economic transformation,” says Durvasula.

“I am extremely pleased to be joining Africa Data Centres and Cassava Technologies, especially now as Africa has become one of the fastest-growing data usage regions in the world. I feel we are well poised to make an invaluable contribution to Africa’s rapidly developing digital ecosystem,” he concludes.