TORONTO – Former Bell Aliant head Karen Sheriff has been appointed president and CEO of co-location provider Q9 Networks effective January 5, 2015, the company announced Tuesday.
Sheriff, pictured, will be based at the company's headquarters in Toronto, and will succeed company co-founder Paul Sharpe who assumed the CEO role after long time CEO Osama Arafat retired earlier this year. Sharpe is leaving the company, but has agreed to remain through early 2015 to ensure a seamless transition, according to the announcement.
Recognized as one of Atlantic Canada's Top 50 CEOs by Atlantic Business magazine, Sheriff has also been named one of Canada's top 25 Women of Influence, Woman of the Year by Canadian Women in Communications and Technology, and one of Canada's Top 100 Most Powerful Women by the Women's Executive Network (WXN). As president and CEO of Bell Aliant since November 2008, Sheriff transformed the Halifax-based telecommunications company with $2.8 billion in annual revenues into an innovative, efficient and highly successful competitor ranked with the best telecom operators across North America. She also led Bell Aliant in its progressive broadband fibre network build and the development of data centres across Atlantic Canada.
"Karen Sheriff is a top-tier executive renowned for her strategic leadership in technology and service innovation that delivers clear benefits for customers”, said Q9 Networks chair Bogdan Cenanovic, in the announcement. “Karen knows the data business and she knows how to make great companies even better. We're delighted that a leader of such exceptional calibre will be taking Q9 forward."
"The Q9 team has built a spectacular Canadian technology business that is primed for growth. The top brand in Canadian data solutions, Q9 offers an array of unparalleled high-availability data centres and the best network connectivity available," added Sheriff. "I love this business and am thrilled to be able to lead the Q9 team in delivering high-value solutions that support our clients' evolving mission-critical data requirements."
A leading provider of outsourced data centre infrastructure for organizations with mission-critical IT operations, Q9's national footprint of 14 high-availability data centres spans three provinces, including Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario, and serves customers in both the public and private sectors. Q9 is owned by an investor group comprising of BCE, and private equity firms Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, Providence Equity Partners and Madison Dearborn Partners LLC.
Canaccord Genuity managing director/head of research Dvai Ghose described Sheriff as “a well-respected leader” and said that this move could prove “potentially positive for BCE’s enterprise strategy”.
“We assume that BCE will eventually buy out its partners in Q9, as we see data centres as an important asset for telcos, both for internal infrastructure and their customers”, he wrote in a research note. “Prior to joining Bell Aliant in 2008, she was President of Bell Canada's Small and Medium Business unit and so has experience in the enterprise market, although Q9’s customers are generally larger blue chip companies. More importantly, we believe that Sheriff could play a significant role in integrating Q9 into BCE if BCE buys out its equity partners, as we assume over time.”
