About us

Teraco is the first provider of vendor neutral Data Centres in South Africa. Customers benefit from the cost savings and improved resilience of securely housing their information systems and networking equipment in a facility built and operated to best practice global standards by an expert organisation with absolute focus on Data Centre technology.

Teraco operates one Data Centre in Rondebosch, Cape Town (CT1) and one in Isando, Johannesburg (JB1) and will be expanding to Pinelands, Cape Town (CT2) and Umhlanga, Durban (DB1).

Teraco is backed by leading international investors and Treacle Private Equity (www.treacle.co.za), a black owned South African private equity group. Teraco is a Level 4 contributor (DTI Codes).

Background

Founded in 2007, Teraco has brought international best practice in vendor neutral data centre environments to South Africa to give businesses a technically superior, physically safer and lower cost environment for their information systems.

The founders of Teraco saw an opportunity for a truly vendor neutral Data Centre offering in South Africa as the local telecommunications market deregulated. The possibility of providing a service that was not tied to any carrier or ISP became not only technically feasible and economically viable, but increasingly desirable to South African enterprises which needed unrestricted choice in how they interconnected their facilities, and connected to the Internet.

Key Staff

Guy Willner (Non Executive Director)

Guy worked for Vivendi Group from 1992 to 1998 both in the UK and in Hungary to establish a telecoms operator culminating in a $210million EBRD funding. Willner began his career with Philips NV in Paris working in CDROM, Smart Card and telematics technologies. Guy holds a BSc Hons Engineering at Oxford Brookes University. He was a co-founder of European-based carrier-neutral data centre company IXEurope, which was bought by US group Equinix in 2007, in a $482 million deal.

Willner, 45, has more than 15 years of senior leadership experience in hi-tech companies. He founded UK-based colocation provider IXEurope in 1998, forging strategic relationships with key accounts as the company's turnover grew over 600% in the first three years. His leadership team grew IXEurope into a London Stock Exchange-listed business, operating 14 large-scale data centres in four countries, before it was bought by Nasdaq-listed Equinix. Equinix is the largest global operator of network-neutral data centres and Internet exchange services. Willner served in a non-excutive role and as president of Equinix Europe until June 2008 and March 2009 respectively.

Find out why Guy joined Teraco

Tim Parsonson (Group CEO, co-founder)

In 1998, Tim co-founded Storm in Cape Town, a telecom services provider. Together with his business partner and executive team, they grew Storm to service over 6 000 South African corporates, including listed entities; employing over 170 staff in three national offices. In October 2007, Storm entered into an agreement with a listed SA telecoms provider to purchase Storm. The acquisition was approved by the Competition Commission in January 2008. Integration of the two businesses is complete and Tim no longer has any shareholding or involvement in the Storm business.

In 1990, Tim Parsonson obtained a BA Honours degree in Mathematics from Cambridge University, UK. After graduating from Cambridge, Tim worked as a management consultant for COBA M.I.D. in the UK and USA offices for five years. As a management consultant he was involved in the establishing the company’s USA IT/Telecoms practice. Between 1996 and 1999, Tim Parsonson was business development director and managing director of Long Distance International Ltd., the European division of Long Distance International Inc which grew to operate in six countries. The group was eventually sold to World Access Inc. in 2000.

Lex van Wyk (Managing Director, co-founder)

Lex joined Telkom in 1986 where he received training in various telecommunications technologies until 1997. Lex became Technical Manager at a startup called Valuecom where he took a leading role in building the first SA based fax over IP business. Valuecom listed on the JSE and was later sold to a leading ISP.

In 2000 Lex joined Storm as Operations Manager. He was rapidly promoted and became General Manager taking P&L responsibility for the Gauteng region and then for the group in the position of Chief Operating Officer. During this time Lex managed most of the business units including Product, Information Systems, Sales, Voice and Data Networks, Operations and HR, a total of 140 staff. Under Lex’s management in 2005 Storm launched a successful Voice over IP platform, terminating voice calls for hundreds of businesses including many large Corporates. He filled his role as COO until the business was sold in 2008.

Sven Blom (Head of Sales)

After graduating, Sven plied his trade as a Mechanical Engineer in the automotive Industry. Later he joined a national consultancy as a Quality Management Consultant to Blue-Chip manufacturing and service companies across SA.

Sven started his telecoms career when he joined Storm Telecom as Operations Manager in the Western Cape. After Storm acquired an ISP, Sven was tasked with establishing Storm's Durban branch. Sven also established the group's Service Centre and Telemarketing departments as Regional Director. At Storm he proved his ability to grow one of the most successful sales teams in the industry and after 7 years at the company he decided to venture into consulting again to various businesses in the ICT and other sectors.

Sven was attracted to Teraco's unique vendor neutral positioning and in 2008 he joined Teraco as Head of Sales.

Gys Geyser (Head of Operations)

Gys started his career in administration with the South African Railways in 1980. After completing his military service, he transferred to the Computer department and continued his studies. He left the Transport Services 19 years later where he joined Internet Solutions. He was instrumental in the start and deployment of the installations department, and later headed up the Hosting infrastructure area where he was responsible for the build, manage and operations of all data centres and designs. He later joined Vodacom Business for a short period and was recruited by Teraco to join as Head of Operations. His experience of directing senior technical teams will aid the management team in the expansion of Teraco's existing operations and build-out of new facilities.

Nils Gerstle (Facilities Manager)

Nils joined Teraco in September 2008 to oversee the construction and operation of the Cape Town Data Centre. He joins with long experience in the design, build and management of high specification data centres. Until 2008 Nils was IT Infrastructure and Service Delivery Manager at Ooba.

Teraco Data Environments (Pty) Ltd Board Members

• Andrew Tuckey – Chairman
• Njabulani Mthembu – Non Executive Director
• Christoff Botha – Non Executive Director
• Guy Willner – Non Executive Director
• William Wallis – Non Executive Director
• Matthew Tagg – Non Executive Director
• Lex van Wyk – Managing Director
• Tim Parsonson – Group CEO