Switch News: Missy Young Named in IERA Women Leaders 10 Best CIOs of 2021

Bringing Fundamental Changes

Karma guides the culture at Switch. They believe that when you put good energy out into the world; good energy will return back to you. Missy Young, Chief Information Officer of Switch is the embodiment of this philosophy. As a leader in a fast-growing company, Missy has never lost track of this core value. She openly and honestly shares her life experiences, challenges, and successes to inspire those around her. Throughout her career at Switch, she has advocated for the crucial inclusion and expansion of women and minorities in our industry. Missy inspires the youth and the future of the technology workforce whether she is working with teenage engineers to explore their career trajectory through FIRST® Robotics or encouraging the elementary school coder to find their way forward with Hour of Code by Code.org.

“Switch designs, builds and operates the highest-rated data center ecosystems in the world.”
Working under the aegis of Switch’s CEO and Founder, Rob Roy, Missy has transformed into a leader.

“He has consistently challenged me to rise to the next levels of leadership throughout my career, and has unfailingly shown by his own actions what it looks like to walk that walk,” she says. “Rob says that in order to be successful, you have to have a vision for the future and you have to have the will to make it happen. His vision as an innovator and a leader is constantly evolving, and as such, he has fostered in me high levels of positive energy and the ability to pivot on a dime when we find a better way to do something. He works harder than anyone else, which constantly encourages me to do more and to be better. He resolutely challenges all of us to always do the right thing in every situation. His guidance has definitely helped to shape me into the leader I am today, and tomorrow he will teach me something new as he is continually progressing as a leader as well,” she adds.

According to Missy, there is a growing concern among CIOs around the largest cloud providers’ massive power. They believe that offering CIOs the ability to have a truly independent, private, hybrid solution is the key to avoiding vendor lock-in. “That is why we have launched The Fourth Cloud ™, which is the independent private side of the hybrid cloud, powered by Dell,” she explains. “Switch has designed Class 4 resilient edge data centers filled with Dell hardware that can be rapidly deployed anywhere, enabling 5G, low-latency storage and high-performance computing at the edge that will connect back to the customers’ main deployments at the Switch PRIME campuses.”

“Combine our Independence-as-a-Service with the most powerful, resilient, and sustainable data centers in the world, with the ability to purchase telecom globally as part of a $7.6 trillion buying cooperative, and you get the best solution, at the best prices, in the safest places in the country,” states Missy proudly. “And because of our commitment to sustainability, we enable our customers to significantly reduce their carbon footprint. We believe that even though data runs the planet, it shouldn’t ruin the planet. As of 2016, all of our data centers in the US have been powered by 100% clean and renewable energy.” She adds, “There is no reason why the entire internet cannot be sustainably powered if we as leaders choose to make that a reality. I’m very proud that Switch has taken that leadership position so that others can follow our example.”

The company is presently concentrating on designing, building, and operating security robots among other ongoing innovations. Switch SENTRY is a fully autonomous security robot, the cornerstone of the Switch Robotics enterprise-class security platform. Backed with the reliability of 24/7/365 human-in-the-loop monitoring and as-needed piloting, this AI-enhanced security system can navigate the world on its own, remotely tracking, recording, and assessing its environment in real-time. “Not only is it designed in an advanced way to augment the security of all of our facilities, this is a product that we will be offering to the entire world. Switch has a 20-year track record for operating military-level secure environments,” adds Missy. “The Switch SENTRY security platform will bring our security focused innovations to help every industry achieve advanced safety & operational resiliency.”

Source: Industry Era Women Leaders