nLighten Appoints New CEO and CFO to Scale Edge Footprint

nLighten has appointed Dame Dawn Childs as Chief Executive Officer and Matthew Harris as Chief Financial Officer.

The move signals a decisive push to scale its edge data centre platform as demand for distributed infrastructure accelerates across Europe.

The leadership changes come at a time when AI, cloud services and high-bandwidth applications are reshaping how and where data is processed.

Demand for AI is driving nLighten's renewed focus on edge deployments, bringing compute capacity closer to end users and latency-sensitive workloads.

Dame Dawn Childs' engineering career

Dame Dawn Childs joins nLighten following a tenure at Pure Data Centres Group, where she rose from Chief Operating Officer to CEO, and was most recently President.

Her experience spans complex infrastructure environments, including a multi-billion-pound transformation programme at National Grid across gas and electricity transmission networks.

Earlier in her career, Dawn held senior engineering roles at Merlin Entertainments and Gatwick Airport, alongside more than two decades as an Engineering Officer in the Royal Air Force.

This blend of operational, engineering and leadership expertise is expected to support nLighten’s next phase of expansion.

She 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' experience in finance

Matthew Harris brings more than 15 years of financial and strategic experience across digital infrastructure and investment.

He joins from Kao Data, where he served as CFO and was a founding board member. Prior to that, he was CFO at Goldacre Ventures, securing more than £250m (US$340.3m) in funding for portfolio companies.

The incoming CFO at nLighten 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.”

Before the appointment of Dame Dawn Childs, Harro Beusker had been CEO of nLighten since co-founding the company in 2021.

Nick Read, Chairman of nLighten, thanked him for his leadership. He said: “With such strong foundations in place, we are well positioned to continue delivering sustainable, high-performance data center solutions for our customers.”

Nick added: “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.”

Scaling edge infrastructure across Europe

Since its founding, nLighten has built a pan-European footprint of 34 data centres across seven countries, delivering 22MW of capacity.

Its growth strategy has combined acquisitions, carve-outs and brownfield developments, targeting established data centre markets while enabling proximity to end users.

The company’s carrier-neutral facilities are designed to support enterprises, hyperscalers and AI-driven workloads that require low latency and high performance.

Sustainability is a core consideration in nLighten’s expansion strategy, with continued investment in energy-efficient infrastructure and responsible growth.

Transition and continuity

Harro Beusker will remain involved as a Non-Executive Director and Senior Advisor to I Squared Capital. His continued presence is intended to support strategic continuity during the leadership transition.

Dawn will join the business on 5 May, spending her initial weeks engaging with teams and visiting sites before formally assuming the CEO role on 1 June. Matthew is set to take up his position as CFO on 1 July.

With new leadership in place and a growing footprint across Europe, nLighten is positioning itself to respond to a rapidly evolving data centre landscape defined by edge computing and the need for resilient, localised infrastructure.