EXECUTIVE BIO

TOR KRISTIAN

TITLE: CEO

LOCATION: GREEN MOUNTAIN

Although his first responsibility within the company was as CTO, Tor Kristian assumed the role of Green Mountain’s CEO in 2017. Kristian was the second employee of Green Mountain, and has been responsible for developing the technical infrastructure.

He has more than 25 years of experience within data centres and IT operations, and has been involved in several major IT and technical projects. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering, specialising in automation. Kristian is actively involved in shaping the Norwegian data centre industry, both as the CEO of Green Mountain and as a board member of the data centre industry association.

“From a technical point of view, our facilities are designed to be robust and redundant, including duplicated cooling and electrical setups, simple and robust cooling solutions, multiple grid power supply, and automatic standby generators. In simple terms, if one system fails or we need to perform maintenance, another system takes over to deliver the service.”

“In addition, we have comprehensive processes to follow and strong work ethics. These include regular inspections and testing, 24/7 support and constant security to keep our services and machinery up-todate and fully functional. We follow the ITIL process and framework, and are certified according to global standards, such as ISO 9001,14001 and 27001.”

“It all comes down to honouring our commitments to the client, both as a team and an individual employee.”

How do you collaborate with the rest of the operations team to achieve these results?

“As an organisation, Green Mountain is people-centric. We coordinate with each other in the best possible manner.”

“When something new happens, or we start work on something, everyone gets a chance to speak about it and share their views.”

“So because of the flat leadership structure, everyone in the company is able to bring their ideas together. We do regular brainstoriming sessions internally and with our partners to deliver best-inclass services.”

“Green Mountain operates as one entity, where the company values of ‘Reliability & Honesty, Knowledge, and Enthusiasm’ are always appreciated and acknowledged.”

“I think this quote by Theodore Roosevelt represents our culture well: 'No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care'."

What does it mean, for you personally, to work for Green Mountain?

“When I joined the company, about threeand-a-half years ago, we had a quarter of the sites that we have now.”

“The company was at its child stage, and we were raising it from the ground up.”

“I love being a part of Green Mountain because I joined it when it was just a kid,

The Green Mountain data center, located on the island of Rennesoy, near Stavanger, Norway, boasts a Power Utilization Efficiency (PUE) rating of 1.2 and has established itself as one of the world’s most efficient data centers. Founded in 2013, and situated in a former NATO munitions bunker, Green Mountain is unique and innovative for several reasons.

Firstly, the data center is powered by cheap, reliable, low carbon hydropower. Secondly, the data center is cooled by seawater from the nearby fjord, and gravity is a key factor in the distribution of that cold water to the data center. By partnering with Schneider Electric, Green Mountain has built a highly resilient and sustainable Tier III certified data center. Its IT room boasts an impressive Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) of less than 1.2, something which Green Mountain measures and reports on in real-time to its customers.

To achieve this, Green Mountain has implemented several solutions from Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure™ for Data Centers architecture, including its InRow™ cooling systems, lnfraStruxure™ hot aisle containment systems, Symmetra MW

UPSs, Canalis LV busway, Prisma LV Distribution, SM6 + transformers, MV/ Citect Scada, and Uniflair™ coolers.

Green Mountain also uses Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure™ IT data center infrastructure management (DCIM) monitoring software to controls a series of mission-critical components, and around 12,000 measuring points, helping it to increase efficiency and resilience across the facility. Further, Schneider Electric also helped design Green Mountain’s cooling system, which uses gravity to bring the cold water from the fjord to its cooling station without using any power or relying on refrigerant gases.

Green Mountain data center customers stand to benefit from this low cost, high efficiency implementation, enabling them to reduce their carbon footprint significantly.

Powered by 100% renewable hydro power and partnering with Schneider Electric, Green Mountain is able to support the critical uptime requirements of its customers, while operating as one of the greenest data centers in the world, with close to zero CO2 emissions.

Future-proof sustainability through a people-centric culture

and now it's maturing towards a sort of ‘teenage’ stage.”

“And it's good to grow with the company, because you learn a lot and, being from an IT background, I see that the demand is rising. We are providing what our customers are looking for and, at the same time, we are also offering genuinely green services.”

“Personally, I am a family-oriented guy, like so many others. And what Green Mountain offers me resembles a family: growing old together, a meaningful vision for the future, great relationships and most importantly, freedom of expression and the work I want to do.”

How do you make sure you have the right person for the job?

“We have developed what we believe is a strong recruitment process. We focus on competence, of course, but what’s equally important is the personality, preferences and motivations of the employee. So, we like to spend time getting to know the candidates, to find out both if this person would like to work for Green Mountain and if this is the correct path for this person.”

“One way to do this is to not only perform interviews but meet the candidates in different settings and different situations.

Not all people are comfortable in an interview setting. Sometimes it is better to do an informal guided tour, let them try some work tasks or do a test. We also have a comprehensive training programme in the Green Academy, to ensure the best support for the right candidate.”

“Another important aspect is to look at the team that the candidate will be a part of. How will the person fit in and complement the strengths and personalities of existing members? We have room for both introverts and extroverts, and it is all about finding the right mix to build a strong team. All of our managers are very involved and engaged in this process, and sometimes we also discuss this with team members, too, before the final decision is made.”

How do you retain high inclusion and diversity standards in your recruitment and retention?

“We have good tools and methods in place to make sure that all candidates are evaluated in the same manner. We never exclude people based on gender, social or ethnic background, age etc. I also believe that a focus on personality gives us more diversity in the organisation.”

“For instance, we have employees of all ages in our company. Some were recruited straight from school without graduate experience, others were recruited when they were in their sixties.”

“When it comes to gender balance, the data centre industry is quite male-dominated. However, we raised the share of female