James Connaughton

James Connaughton

CEO

James Connaughton, CEO at Nautilus, discusses how his firm has revolutionised the data center industry...

James Connaughton is the CEO at Nautilus. He began his career as a Partner at Sidley Austin focusing on energy, natural resources and environment, energy and environmental management and compliance assurance systems. “I had a passion for industrial sustainability and spent the majority of that time negotiating the ISO 14000 international environmental management standards and then going around the world implementing the standards at facilities large and small,” he explains. “I’ve had the privilege of setting up energy, environment, and natural resource management systems in every setting you can imagine, from petrochemical facilities, auto assembly plants, and tire factories, to big mining operations, ball-bearing plants, and telecommunications equipment manufacturing facilities. I helped a lot of organizations more effectively assure their compliance with law and regulation and then move beyond compliance into continual improvement of their environmental footprint.”

He then moved on to serve as Chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality as Senior Advisor to President George W. Bush. Roles followed at clean energy companies Constellation Energy and Exelon, and big data analytics company C3.ai, before moving into his current role at Nautilus. During his career, Connaughton has learned several key lessons about leadership. “Effective leadership is pulling together great teams, setting clear objectives, and then helping people create and execute,” he explains. “It’s about creating an environment where they can succeed around shared objectives. It requires continuously looking over the near-time to the long-term horizon so that you are staying current and looking forward instead of backwards. It also requires a good sense of how you, your team, and your business are making a positive contribution to society and our natural environment.”

“I’ve been very fortunate to work with relatively small teams on very big playing fields. When I was working in the U.S. Government, we had a small group of professionals inside of the White House, whose activities expanded out to the cabinet departments and agencies, the US Congress, the states, and then out into the rest of the world. Everything accomplishment is the result mobilising consensus among a broad range of stakeholders—often numbering in the thousands and in some cases millions. I’ve been very fortunate to work with others in that dynamic. Success depends on bringing people with many different viewpoints to a shared goal, which in turn requires keeping everyone in good spirits and driving forward.”

Read the full story: HERE 

Share
Share
Author

Featured Interviews

Featured

Dr Christopher Stief

Co-Founder and CEO at DATA CASTLE

Despite DATA CASTLE being in its infancy, its Co-Founder & CEO shares how it uses data centre veterans’ expertise to pave the way to sustainable operations

Read More

John Eland

Chief Executive Officer, STACK Infra

John Eland, who heads STACK Infrastructure in EMEA, talks through his unconventional entry into the data centre industry and leading his workforce

Read More
“Our ESG and DE&I programs are pivotal to ensuring that we not only strive to deliver excellence in data centre development and operations, but we also provide a welcoming and thriving work environment for our people along with developing strong connections with the communities in which we operate.”
John Eland
Chief Executive Officer, STACK Infra

Marcos Peigo

Co-Founder and CEO at Scala Data Centers

Co-Founder & CEO

Read More

Pip Squire

Head of Energy and Sustainability at Ark DataCentres

Ark Data Centres’ Head of Energy & Sustainability, Pip Squire shares his industry experience in infrastructure construction over the past 40 years

Read More

Friso Haringsma

Managing Director of DataCentre United

Friso Haringsma is Managing Director of DataCenter United and talks about DC expansion, work culture and why local problems require local solutions

Read More

Dr Christopher Stief

Co-Founder and CEO at DATA CASTLE

Despite DATA CASTLE being in its infancy, its Co-Founder & CEO shares how it uses data centre veterans’ expertise to pave the way to sustainable operations

Read More