Biography of Milan Radia

Milan is an acknowledged expert on the international data centre industry, with which he has been closely involved since 1999, initially as a senior investment banker and more recently as a senior executive at major industry operators. Combining a deep understanding of key technology segments and investor thought processes with rigorous financial and strategic analysis and a firm grasp of technical market issues, Milan is able to join strategic dots in innovative and highly effective ways.

Milan’s career commenced in asset management at Prudential Portfolio Managers, where after five years he was responsible for UK equity portfolios with a total value in excess of £350m. This included leading the launch of one of the earliest ESG investment funds in the UK market. At this time, Prudential was the largest institutional investor in the UK market, creating an opportunity for Milan to participate in thousands of meetings with CEOs and CFOs of listed companies from the UK and internationally, as well as product and sector experts from an array of global investment banks.

In 1999, Milan moved from the buy-side to investment banking at UBS Warburg, where he specialised in the global technology industry, with a particular focus on technology infrastructure companies. Over the subsequent 18 years, Milan worked on many high-profile successful IPOs and other complex capital markets transactions across the technology sector, interacting with institutional investors and corporate management teams around the world.

During his time in financial markets, Milan won several significant awards. In 2017, Milan was ranked the No.1 earnings estimator in the UK for his sector in the Thomson Starmine Awards. This followed No.1 Starmine rankings for Europe in 2010 and 2011 and a No.2 ranking in the UK in 2011. In 2015, Milan and his team were ranked no.1 in the Extel Awards by corporate management teams for UK Small & Midcap technology research. Milan has also been techMARK Analyst of the Year and achieved top 3 Institutional Investor sector rankings for his coverage of the data centre, software and telecoms sectors.

In 2017, Milan was recruited by the management team at Interxion, a company that he had advised since its NYSE IPO in 2011. There, he reported directly to the CEO, David Ruberg, one of the visionary figures in the global data centre industry, who took Interxion from bankruptcy to a valuation of c.$9bn when it was sold to Digital Realty in March 2020. Under David’s mentorship, Milan undertook a steep learning curve, gaining intensive exposure not only to the intricacies and inner workings of an international data centre business, but more importantly to the approach and methods of a truly inspirational leader.

In May 2022, Milan moved to work for the data centre business of DAMAC Group in Dubai, Edgnex Data Centres. DAMAC is one of the largest real estate investors in the Middle East and Milan reported directly to the charismatic founder and Chairman, Hussain Sajwani, one of the wealthiest billionaires in the Middle East region. Milan’s responsibilities as Senior Vice President included leading the African data centre business plus several other country data centre initiatives in Europe and the Middle East.

In November 2023, Milan took the latest step, fulfilling a long-held ambition to create a next-generation digital infrastructure business, ConnectedCompute DMCC. Headquartered in Dubai, UAE, the company leverages the  accumulated in-depth knowledge of a growing team of exceptional in-house experts who have outstanding track records at some of the largest players in the global data centre industry across engineering, data centre operations and project management. Together, this team brings the requisite experience, knowledge and skills to deliver the most complex projects around the world, leaverging an array of senior relationships. ConnectedCompute is an firm addressing the strategic, design, project execution and operational management requirements of advanced digital infrastructure projects and the complex applications and workloads hosted on this infrastructure. More information can be found at www.connectedcompute.com.

Milan is a regular presenter and panelist at major data centre industry conferences and is an active member of the voting panels for the UK Tech Awards and the UK National Technology Awards. He is married with three children and resides in Dubai.