BOSTON — The data center development company Gotspace Data Partners is welcoming a chief operating officer.
Gotspace hired Mike Grella as COO, according to the company last month.
Most recently, Grella served as director of economic development at Amazon.
Grella will help guide Gotspace in their master development of a “digital infrastructure corridor” between New York and Boston.
Gotspace has secured at least 1,500 acres of land in Wallingford, Groton, Griswold, and Bozrah, Connecticut for its data hubs, providing for inter-connectivity for its planned data center and technology infrastructure.
The company has seven campuses that can accommodate over 25 hyperscale data centers in its pipeline.
Grella’s background
Previously, Grella served in several roles at Amazon from 2012-2019: legal director; director of public policy; director of infrastructure; and director of economic development.
Grella was responsible for various public-private partnerships and facilitated the expansion of Amazon’s e-commerce logistics and last-mile delivery network, according to Gotspace.
He collaborated with hundreds of federal, state, regional, and local officials to support Amazon’s construction of tens of millions of square feet of new development.
Grella was also responsible for the economic development function for Amazon Web Services (AWS) and the strategic planning of large-scale data center hub projects and critical data center deployments around the world.
“At Amazon, Mike Grella played an important role in the e-commerce and data center boom over the past decade,” said Nicholas Fiorillo, president, Gotspace Data Partners.
Fiorillo said the company believes Grella will “bring the leadership skills that made him historically effective at Amazon” to the master planning and development roll out of its planned data center corridor.
Grella added that the availability and scalability of connected sites is limited in the region.
“New Englanders are under served, and Gotspace stands ready to address growing market demand,” Grella said.