Africa: Wiocc’s data centre business, OADC, appoints CEO

African ICT infrastructure company Wiocc Group has appointed Ayotunde Coker as CEO of its data centre business, Open Access Data Centres (OADC), with immediate effect.

Nigerian-born Coker has 35 years of telecommunications experience in Africa, Europe, the US and Asia and, for the past eight years, has been CEO of Rack Centre, a well-known data centre business in West Africa.

The appointment follows Wiocc’s raising of US$200-million in new funding late last year to build data centres and other infrastructure on the continent.

The capital raise – made up of both debt and equity – will also be used to expand Wiocc’s connectivity within Africa and internationally, the company said at the time.

Cape IV, a fund managed by private equity firm African Capital Alliance, provided the equity funding. The debt portion came from the International Finance Corporation, Proparco and the Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund managed by Ninety One. Verdant Capital acted as financial advisor to Wiocc for the equity portion.

“Having secured $200-million in funding at the end of 2021, we are now engaged in transforming Africa’s digital infrastructure with the most extensive deployment ever in Africa of open-access national, regional and edge data centres,” Wiocc Group CEO Chris Wood said in a statement on Monday.

“Tunde’s depth and breadth of experience and leadership, together with his stature and contacts in the African data centre industry will, I’m sure, be instrumental in ensuring the company’s success,” Wood added.

Edge data centres

Coker will be based on Lagos, Nigeria, which Wiocc said is a central geographic location in Africa.

Last month, OADC said it plans to establish 100 “edge” data centres in smaller centres across South Africa by the end of the year. Twenty-six of these facilities will be live by August. Edge data centres are smaller than centralised facilities and take Internet services closer to end users, reducing latency and improving performance.

The roll-out, OADC said, would support the deployment by telecoms operators and Internet service providers of fibre and 5G services into smaller towns and regions.