Cologix Strengthens Leadership as Company Continues Rapid Expansion

DENVER–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Cologix, a network and cloud-neutral interconnection and data-center company, today announced it has added two new executives to its leadership team as the company prepares to rapidly expand its data center colocation and interconnection services.

Laura Ortman joins Cologix as President and Chief Revenue Officer (CRO), to help build upon the company’s role as a strategic and trusted advisor to its customers. In this role, Ortman will develop the strategic sales and revenue plan, focusing on deepening customer relationships and broadening the Go To Market Strategy to include the fast growing ecosystem of hyperscale cloud providers. Ortman will also be responsible for all aspects of how the company interacts with current customers and prospects.

Ortman and her team will look to leverage Cologix’s unique domain expertise, from large-scale cloud deployments to deep understanding of the pressures facing today’s CIO’s, to establish deeper relationships with customers at every point of engagement from initial acquisition and sales, through customer relationship management and client services.

Dawn Smith will serve as Cologix’s President and Chief Operating Officer (COO), to lead Cologix’s strategic initiatives and real estate development and to maintain strong administrative support across the company, from human resources management to corporate strategy. In this role, she will support the company’s commercial strategy and merger and acquisition (M&A) activity and will serve as the Secretary to the Board of Directors. She will also be responsible for all the legal, human resources and administrative functions at Cologix.

“Both Laura and Dawn have a track record of creating strategic value by helping companies scale rapidly both organically and through M&A and have a clear ability to develop strong and enduring relationships with customers, partners and prospects,” said Bill Fathers, Chairman and CEO, Cologix. “These additions to our executive leadership are critical to our success as we ramp up our market expansion efforts in support of the rapid growth of the largest cloud players in the world. Laura and Dawn will play a pivotal role in our continued and rapid growth.”

Ortman and Smith bring decades of expertise to Cologix and will be a valued part of the growing, and highly respected leadership team.

Ortman was most recently at Equinix where she served as the executive vice president and chief customer officer reporting to the CEO. Prior to her time at Equinix, she led VMWare’s Cloud Services Business Unit and was an active member of VMwomen Executive Leadership Council for close to a decade. Ortman has also played key roles at Jeppesen, a Boeing Company, and Lockheed Martin. Ortman has BSBA in Marketing from University of Alabama in Huntsville, AL and holds an MBA from Regis University.

Smith most recently served McAfee as executive vice president and Chief Legal Officer. She has been practicing M&A, corporate and securities law for over two decades. Prior to her time at McAfee, she served as senior vice president, chief legal officer and secretary to the board of directors at VMware. A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and Stanford Law School, Smith was a partner at Morrison & Foerster, an attorney at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati and served in the U.S. Navy. Dawn also holds an MBA from Providence College. She currently serves on the board of directors of the Minority Corporate Counsel Association.

About Cologix Inc.

Cologix provides reliable, secure, scalable data center and interconnection solutions from 25 prime interconnection locations across nine strategic North American edge markets. Over 1,600 leading network, managed services, cloud, media, content, financial services and enterprise customers trust Cologix to support their business-critical infrastructure and connect them to customers, vendors and partners. Our dedicated, experienced local teams and scalable solutions enable us to provide industry-leading customer service and the ability to successfully support customers at the internet’s new edge. For a tour of one of our data centers in Columbus, Dallas, Jacksonville, Lakeland, Minneapolis, Montreal, New Jersey, Toronto or Vancouver visit www.cologix.com or email sales@cologix.com. Follow Cologix on LinkedIn and Twitter.