nLighten appoints Dame Dawn Childs as CEO and Matthew Harris as CFO

nLighten, provider of innovative edge data center services across Europe, has appointed Dame Dawn Childs as Chief Executive Officer and Matthew Harris as Chief Financial Officer, further strengthening its leadership team as the company enters its next phase of growth. 

Dame Dawn Childs joins from Pure Data Centres Group, where she spent nearly five years, initially as Chief Operating Officer before being appointed Chief Executive Officer in May 2023. Dawn will continue as a Non-Executive Director for Pure Data Centres as part of this transition. Prior to Pure DC she led a multi-billion-pound transformation programme at National Grid, spanning both gas and electricity transmission businesses. Earlier in her career, she held senior engineering leadership roles including Group Engineering Director at Merlin Entertainments and Head of Engineering at Gatwick Airport, following 23 years as an Engineering Officer in the Royal Air Force. 

Matthew Harris brings over 15 years of financial and strategic experience across private equity-backed and listed businesses in the digital infrastructure, technology and investment sectors. He joins from Kao Data, where he was a founding board member, investor director and served as CFO since 2021. Previously, he was CFO at Goldacre Ventures, where he oversaw significant growth and secured over £250 million of funding for portfolio companies.  

These appointments come as demand for distributed digital infrastructure accelerates across Europe, driven by artificial intelligence, cloud connectivity and high-bandwidth applications. Together with the senior management team, Childs and Harris will lead nLighten’s continued expansion across key European markets, with a focus on organic growth, strategic acquisitions and continued investment in sustainable infrastructure solutions. 

Nick Read, Chairman of nLighten, said: "We are delighted to welcome Dawn and Matthew to nLighten. Dawn’s deep experience leading complex, mission-critical infrastructure businesses makes her exceptionally well suited to guide the company’s continued growth, while Matthew’s strong financial and strategic expertise will be invaluable as we scale the platform. As AI drives unprecedented demand for digital infrastructure and edge capacity across Europe, nLighten is uniquely positioned to capture this opportunity.” 

He added “I would also like to thank Harro Beusker for his leadership and the pivotal role he has played in building nLighten into the platform it is today. With such strong foundations in place, we are well positioned to continue delivering sustainable, high-performance data center solutions for our customers." 

Dame Dawn Childs, incoming Chief Executive Officer, said: "I am thrilled to be joining the team at nLighten at such a pivotal time for both the company and the broader digital infrastructure sector. The opportunity for nLighten to play a meaningful role in supporting Europe’s growing need for digital sovereignty is significant, particularly as demand for secure, high-performance and sustainable infrastructure continues to accelerate.” 

Matthew Harris, incoming Chief Financial Officer, said: "I am excited to join nLighten as it continues to build momentum across Europe. The company has a clear strategy and strong platform on which to build from. I look forward to working with the team to support its continued expansion and deliver long-term value for customers and stakeholders." 

Harro Beusker, who co-founded nLighten in 2021 and has served as CEO since inception, will remain on the nLighten Board as a Non-Executive Director to support continuity of strategy and a seamless transition. He will also serve as a Senior Advisor to I Squared Capital. 

Since its inception, nLighten has built a pan-European platform of 34 data centers across seven countries, with 22 MW of capacity, through a combination of acquisitions, carve-outs and brownfield developments. Its carrier-neutral facilities, located in many of Europe’s most established data center markets, enable customers to deploy infrastructure closer to users and latency-sensitive applications. 

As AI adoption accelerates and traditional data center hubs face power constraints, enterprises, hyperscalers and AI companies are increasingly turning to edge infrastructure. nLighten’s distributed footprint and local operating model position it to meet this growing demand. 

Dame Dawn Childs will join nLighten on 5th May and spend the month meeting colleagues across the business, visiting nLighten sites and completing a handover with Jeroen Hoencamp, before assuming the CEO position on June 1st. As part of this transition, she will also move into a non-executive position at Pure Data Centres Group.