STACK’s strategic focus
At the start of 2024, STACK EMEA created a dedicated business unit for enterprise colocation.
“We took the strategic decision at the start of last year to separate into two divisions,” John shares. “This gives a better service to the enterprise colo clients, allowing that unit to exclusively focus there, and likewise for our hyperscale clients.”
The separation attracted interest from investors. In May 2025, STACK EMEA made the significant strategic decision to divest its European colocation business, with an agreement in place for Apollo-managed infrastructure funds to acquire it. This move, John explains, was driven by the desire to sharpen the company’s focus on hyperscale data centre clients — the large cloud and internet companies that require vast, standardised facilities.
“It also allows us now, particularly with Blue Owl behind us, to hone in and focus on the hyperscale clients and requirements driving that real expansion-of-scale business.
“For me and my executive management team, it allows us to be exclusively focused on delivering for hyperscale rather than having one eye on the enterprise colo clients. It’s a strategic decision that makes business sense and makes sense for all stakeholder groups. It’s a good deal all around.”
Social impact as a core value
For John, social impact is not a tick-box exercise but a core part of STACK’s mission. He is passionate about giving back to the communities where the company operates, particularly as the data centre industry continues to grow at an unprecedented rate.
“This is nothing new but it’s really important to me that we give something back and engage,” John says. “Growth is exponential, so it’s so important that you build close links with communities and provide opportunities for people.”
At STACK, social impact initiatives have expanded significantly over the last two years, including its bee conservation projects in Italy and the Nordics and its partnership with STEM education programmes in Switzerland and the UK.
But the most ambitious programme to date is the STACK Academy. A skills-based learning programme designed to reach groups that are often overlooked by the technology sector, the STACK Academy was originally put forward as a traditional apprenticeship scheme and has since evolved into its current form in response to feedback from potential participants.
“We opened the age range up because we got a lot of inquiries from people who were in their 30s and 40s asking whether it was open to them or if they needed to be 18 to 21,” John shares. “The whole point of the STACK Academy is to target the harder to reach groups, the people who might not have the opportunities.
“I’m really trying to push this into European and UK public policy and the schools’ curriculum. If we can’t get to people at school age, it’s a futile battle — we’re going to be constantly fighting this war of attrition.
“We need to educate the educators as well as reaching out to parents. We’re really trying to accelerate and push the outreach to people who don’t have opportunities. I want everybody to have the opportunity — whatever gender, social background, ethnic background you have — to come and work for us and come into the data centre industry.”
In a bid to embed data centre education across Europe, STACK partners with the likes of go-tec! STEM lab in Schaffhausen, just outside Zurich and EPFL University in Lausanne. It has also launched a pioneering scholarship scheme in the UK for girls studying STEM subjects.
“We need to make sure, in the harder to reach markets and societies that we’re in, that we create our own STACK culture and we will drive that through,” John adds.
And, with the STACK Academy specifically bringing in talent directly from the communities in which it operates —Milan, Geneva and Oslo, for this year — it feeds back into STACK’s social impact drive to create value.
John continues: “There’s a business driver behind that as well. We are building facilities that are going to be there for more than 30 years, so I want my employees to live within 10, 20 minutes of the data centres. Operating in these areas, we want to give back to these communities. It makes good business sense to have your employee talent pool on the doorstep.”
