WAGO appointment to lead data centre growth

Patel takes up the role with immediate effect as WAGO accelerates its move into the data centre sector, one of the fastest growing markets for industrial automation and one where the company sees significant headroom for its controls, connectivity and monitoring technologies.

He joins from Phoenix Contact, where he spent close to eight years as Industry Manager for Infrastructure and Campaign Manager for Data Centres. During that period, he helped build the company's international data centre market strategy, working across the UK, mainland Europe and the United States, and delivered a multi-million pound pipeline in his final year. Earlier in his career he worked on OPC UA architecture for a European software firm, supporting projects for organisations including EDF and Crossrail, and spent several years as an automation specialist with a Siemens solution partner. That combination gives him a broad view of the sector, spanning controls engineering, IT systems architecture and commercial strategy.

In his new role, Patel will lead WAGO's commercial and industry engagement across the data centre market. His immediate priorities are to build recognition for WAGO's automation portfolio among consultants, specifiers and operators, to shape the product roadmap for the next decade of data centre growth, and to develop the positioning needed to take that portfolio to market.

That portfolio sits across low voltage controls, monitoring and connectivity, where WAGO's modular approach to power and data connections is designed to speed up installation and reconfiguration as facilities scale. Support for open protocols also gives operators a route to bring building systems, electrical infrastructure and IT monitoring into a single view, an increasingly pressing requirement as densities rise and cooling architectures change.

“The data centre market is moving faster than almost any other sector we operate in, and the operators and consultants building these facilities need automation partners who understand both the electrical infrastructure and the IT systems sitting on top of it,” said Darren Hodson, managing director, WAGO UK and Ireland. “Deepan has spent his career working across that divide and has already helped build a data centre business from a standing start once before. Bringing him into the team is a clear statement of our ambition in this market.”

“WAGO has a portfolio the data centre sector genuinely needs, particularly around modular connectivity, monitoring and open automation protocols, and my job is to make sure the market knows it,” said Patel. “The IT and OT gap remains one of the biggest unsolved problems in this industry. As densities rise and cooling architectures change, the operators who can see and control everything in their facility through a single open system will have a real advantage. That is the conversation I want to be having with consultants, specifiers and operators over the next twelve months.”

www.wago.com/gb/