CyrusOne CEO Tesh Durvasula hired by Cassava Technologies to oversee African Data Centre expansion

Tesh Durvasula

Pan-African tech company Cassava Technologies has announced the appointment of Tesh Durvasula as its new CEO of Africa Data Centres (ADC).

The veteran exec will be charged with driving growth for the company’s data centres to meet increasing demand for data and infrastructure on the African continent. 

Durvasula joins from CyrusOne, where he most recently served as CEO. He has held a number of senior positions across his 25-year career, and will lead ADC as it expands its footprint of hyperscale data centres.

Hardy Pemhiwa, president and CEO of Cassava Technologies, said: “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 $300m funding with the US IDFC and the recent US$90m equity investment by IFC, it was imperative that we scale up our management team”.

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