atNorth Announces Erling Gudmundsson as COO as Expansion Continues
Infrastructure veteran strengthens the Executive Team as the business experiences significant growth.
Reykjavík, Iceland – August 15th, 2023 – atNorth, a leading Nordic colocation, high-performance computing, and artificial intelligence service provider, has announced the appointment of Erling Gudmundsson as Chief Operating Officer (COO). The hire supports atNorth’s commitment to building a world class leadership team to guide its extensive growth plans in response to the increasing demand for cost efficient and sustainable digital infrastructure. atNorth’s founder and original COO, Benedikt Gröndal, remains at the business and atNorth continues to benefit from his expertise in a new capacity.
“Erling Gudmundsson is an infrastructure veteran”, says Eyjólfur Magnús Kristinsson, CEO of atNorth. “The combination of his technical expertise alongside his commercial acumen makes him ideally suited to supporting our ongoing growth strategy. Erling’s passion for customer service and professional standards align to our core values and we are delighted to gain the expertise of this award-winning and inspirational leader as we continue to scale”.
With over 25 years’ experience of building and operating fiber networks, Erling has lived and worked in several European countries. His most recent position was as the CEO of Reykjavik Fiber Network, a 1G true open access fiber network in Iceland. Erling led the business’s extensive expansion resulting in 80% fiber penetration in Iceland. Prior to this co-founded Industria, a specialist in fiber-optic/mobile networks and digital services and solutions company and also spent 2 years at Iceland’s largest media company, 365. Winner of both the Red Herring 100 Europe Awards the Broadband World Forum’s Annual People’s Choice Award, Erling is a versatile and high achieving, multi-award-winning leader, with a track record of doubling EBITDA, delivering market leading expertise and a forte for delivering exceptional shareholder value.
“I am thrilled to join atNorth to support its continued expansion,” says Erling. “The substantial increase in the use of AI has led to a surge in demand for sustainable high performance infrastructure. This coupled with atNorth’s perfect Nordic locations, best in class technology and strong team backed by strong owners makes for an exciting future ahead. I’m delighted to be part of the journey.”
atNorth credits it’s collaborative and transformational team for its continued expansion – a team that has been recently bolstered by the appointment of further high profile professionals including Stephen Donovan as Chief Development Officer, Fredrik Jansson as Chief Strategy and Marketing & Communications Officer, Mardís Heimisdóttir as Director of Strategy Implementation, Tracey Pewtner, as Marketing Director, Elísabet Árnadóttir, Director of Security and Compliance, David Sandars as Sales Director for the UK, Pekka Järveläinen as Sales Director for Finland and Michael Endres as Sales Director for the DACH Region and Wayne Allen, Sales Director — US.
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About atNorth
atNorth is a leading Pan-Nordic data center services company that offers sustainable, cost-effective, scalable colocation and high-performance computing services across Iceland, Sweden and Finland. The company operates six data centers in strategic locations across the Nordics, with a sixth site to open in Helsinki, Finland in 2024.
With sustainability at its core, atNorth’s data centers run on renewable energy resources and support circular economy principles. All atNorth sites leverage innovative design, power efficiency, and intelligent operations to provide long-term infrastructure and flexible colocation deployments. The tailor-made solutions enable businesses to calculate, simulate, train and visualize data workloads in an efficient, cost-optimized way.
atNorth is headquartered in Reykjavik, Iceland, and is trusted by industry-leading organizations to operate their most critical workloads. The business was founded in 2009 and acquired by Partners Group in 2022. For more information, visit atNorth.com or follow atNorth on LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter.
