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Rethinking the Technology Lifecycle, with Ali Fenn, a Data Center Infrastructure and Sustainability Leader, formerly the President of ITRenew
In this episode Ali Fenn, a Data Center Infrastructure and Sustainability Leader, formerly the President of ITRenew, breaks down the journey of technology from pre-use to post-use, and analyzes the amount of carbon emission produced throughout its lifecycle.
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Ali is the former CEO of IT Renew, which was recently acquired by Iron Mountain, a circular data center services company that provides secure decommissioning and Sesame recertified rack scale solutions. When she initially joined the company in 2018, Fenn was the Chief Innovation Officer. Her prior experience includes roles such as CEO of Impact Atlas, Head of Market Development at Seagate Technology, COO at Archetype Solutions, and a number of VP positions in Business Development at different companies.
In 2006, Fenn founded her own company, York Street Strategy, with the goal of bringing exceptional, outsourced business development to venture-backed technology companies. She leads a small team of consultants who collectively bring additional strategic, business, legal, and marketing expertise to the York Street quiver.
Ali is a dynamic and innovative executive with a track record of success in business development, sales and product management. She has held start-up to public company leadership roles, and has international experience in EMEA, China, and India. She is a resourceful, strategic thinker and decision maker, and a well-respected leader and peer. She has established a reputation as a compelling negotiator, deal closer and relationship builder. She has a track record of growing revenue, establishing new channels, and in catalyzing ecosystems around new ideas and products.
Fenn’s experience spans numerous technology areas: enterprise infrastructure and the broader software and applications stack, storage and data management, security, mobile applications, hardware, and consumer web applications and services. She brings this experience and extensive personal relationships to each client engagement, enabling significant added leverage to internal teams.
Ali is currently a board member of Cato, and strategic advisor for Energy Internet Corporation as well as Pentatonic.
This episode of Over the Edge features an interview between Matt Trifiro and Ali Fenn, a Data Center Infrastructure and Sustainability Leader. She is the former CEO of IT Renew, which was recently acquired by Iron Mountain. Ali is an expert in green computing, sustainability and is a dynamic and innovative executive with a track record of success in business development, sales and product management. She is currently a board member of Cato, and strategic advisor for Energy Internet Corporation as well as Pentatonic.
In this episode Ali Fenn breaks down the journey of technology from pre-use to post-use, and analyzes the amount of carbon emission produced throughout its lifecycle. She also talks about creating a circular IT infrastructure, demystifying hyperscale hardware, and causes of the ‘lion’s share’ of carbon emissions. She ends the episode talking about a need for the world’s collective effort in solving unsustainable IT infrastructure.
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Key Quotes:
“They’ve [most companies] done a really good job at being efficient in the use phase, but supply chain is the next big place we all have to look at. It’s the lion’s share of carbon emissions. It’s not just equipment, it’s cement and construction and everything else that goes into the physical infrastructure.”
“I do believe that it’s this topic of sustainability and in the context of IT infrastructure: It’s our global collective imperative to solve it. And, at the same time, it’s a huge opportunity, right? Data center infrastructure is going to fuel the transition economy. It’s a trillion dollar opportunity. This is not just sustainability, it is not a tax. It’s an opportunity if we do it right.”
“The idea here is to demystify hyperscale hardware and demystify open hardware. It doesn’t have to be harder, but there is some work that goes into making it accessible to the broader markets. And that’s the stuff that we do. We ultimately deliver it in a way that the enterprises can run super fast. And, that time-to-value is a big one, especially right now in the supply chain that we’re in. You asked about the value proposition of this stuff, well, it’s available. We’re not manufacturing this stuff, right. So that’s a huge advantage right now.”
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Timestamps:
(02:30) Early on in Ali’s career
(03:25) First Company Ali Joined
(04:00) Transfer to Infrastructure and Hardware
(05:50) What does ITrenew do?
(07:53) Data Center Sustainability and the ‘3 scope’ terminology associated with carbon emissions
(09:40) PUE – Power Usage Effectiveness
(11:42) Hardware Footprints – Sustainability and Circularity
(15:45) Hyperscale data centers
(20:30) ITrenew and recycling vs. refurbishing
(25:01) What is Sesame?
(25:40) Data Security
(29:38) Edge is Everywhere – computing impacting sustainability and equipment
(33:21) Ecosystem Wide Collaboration and Data Center Sustainability
(35:56) Supply chain data publication
(36:45) TCO Levels
(39:00) Rack Density
(40:00) Business Model Innovation and Circular IT Infrastructure
(42:30) Edge Computing Effects
(45:15) Solving IT infrastructure
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Sponsor:
Over the Edge is brought to you by Dell Technologies to unlock the potential of your infrastructure with edge solutions. From hardware and software to data and operations, across your entire multi-cloud environment, we’re here to help you simplify your edge so you can generate more value. Learn more by visiting DellTechnologies.com/SimplifyYourEdge for more information or click on the link in the show notes.
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