Marc Ganzi, chief executive of DigitalBridge, a company that enables, hosts, and transports technology, shared his insights on leadership and detailed developments in the digitalization transformation as part of his Distinguished Leaders Lecture on Jan. 27 at the University of Miami Patti and Allan Herbert Business School.
“The digital divide doesn’t have to exist,” Ganzi said in the virtual event. “Digital can be the great leveler to equalize what’s happening in the world today. We can take the economy forward by bringing everyone along for that journey.”
Dean John Quelch and Niam Yaraghi, an assistant professor of business technology and non-resident fellow in the Brookings Institution's Center for Technology Innovation, facilitated the session.
Ganzi has worked in the telecommunications and infrastructure industry for more than two decades. He has launched and guided three startups since 2003 when he founded Global Tower Partners, which grew to become one of the largest privately owned tower companies in the United States.
In his talk, he highlighted the five thematics, or major investment arenas that his company is pursuing: cloud migration, building 5G networks, the movement of data, the internet of things (IOT), and software defined network (SDN) development.
He described the movement to the cloud migration as a multi-decade movement that will continue over the next decade. DigitalBridge started a year ago building 5G networks in the U.S., and Ganzi described the 4G to 5G migration paths as “one of the most complicated builds I’ve ever been involved in.”
The movement of data or data gravity to the edge was prompted by the pandemic.
“COVID taught us that you had to have data and capabilities in storage in secondary and tertiary markets that move out into the suburbs—that flipped the thesis on its side, so edge computing (bringing data storage closer to sources of data, which improves response time and saves bandwidth) was born,” he explained.
He referenced IOT, or the development of technologies that connect and exchange data with other devices and systems, as “digital transformation at its core” and cited company projects with a New York City airport, one with Ford Motor Company, and another with the Port of Long Beach, in this domain.
Ganzi, who sits on the board of the Federal Communication Commission (FCC), explained that he collaborated in helping draft legislation for the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which was passed into law last November.
He noted that $45 billion of the package is assigned to states and called that appropriation “unfortunate” because states too often direct such funds to the same telecom partners and companies with legislative influence.
“We don’t need to invest in infrastructure in neighborhoods with $2 million homes—that continues to build the divide,” he said, suggesting that the funding should instead be directed to initiatives such as the FCC’s E-rate program that helps make telecommunications and information services more affordable for public schools and libraries.
“We need to hold states accountable for where this $45 billion goes,” he said.
The executive described himself as a champion of inner-city connectivity. “We have to make sure that schools and school districts are getting access to the cloud so that technology works for the students. It’s no good if a kid goes home and he doesn’t have internet access.”
Ganzi reported that his firm recently built a data center at Morehouse College, a historical Black men’s college, and supported a career curriculum there to develop engineers.
From a data center perspective, the U.S. provides 10 times more total connectivity than any other country in the world, he said. And from a broadband perspective, and noting gaps in the connectivity in rural areas, the U.S. provides superior infrastructure to anywhere else in the world—with the exception of the Nordic countries and Japan.
Yet the threat of digital terrorism looms.
“We’ve got to arm our economy for the next wave of digital terrorism—and we’re wildly underequipped and underprepared,” Ganzi warned.
How does DigitalBridge approach the question of cybersecurity, Quelch asked.
Ganzi noted that cyber security is hard and that there were more corporate raiders and corporate attacks than ever before in 2022.
“Data thieves and data ‘hostaging,’ as we call it, is massively on the rise,” Ganzi said. “Enterprises are fully consumed—and rightfully so—in protecting their data. Data is not entirely safe and secure, and people have to realize that in the world we live in today that’s part of the risk of the game.”
He pointed out that crypton miners have a “voracious appetite” for connectivity and power.
“But it’s not ESG, and the amount of power that we’re burning and consuming at these data centers is just insane and not particularly good for the planet,” he said, referencing Environmental, Social, and Governance, the practice of socially responsible investment.
His firm would continue to build and invest in the crypto arena, Ganzi said. But it was doing so with new ideas—such as putting crypto mines in the central U.S. in areas of northern Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas, where there is an abundance of wind and solar capable of powering the mines.
DigitalBridge is currently looking at locations and to invest in two regional utility companies to create “carbon neutral day one crypto mines,” he added.
When he became the CEO of a public company, Ganzi acknowledged that he made the decision to stop looking at the share price.
“What I’ve come to understand is that if you consistently beat your numbers and you put out clear guidance—that your messaging is clear about how you’re going to grow and that you differentiate against your peer set—and then you can back it up with data, that’s how your stock price moves,” he said.
His one major piece of advice for up-and-coming leaders?
“Making hard decisions is tough. We all delay because we want to make the right choice. Yet part of great leadership is being uncomfortable,” he said.
“In this economy, you move or you’re dead, and you’ve got to move quick,” Ganzi stated. “Good leadership is about gathering the data and great people around you, having a really good plan, and then building consensus around that plan—and once it’s done, you go.”
