Leadership

Smartbunker. Evolution in progress.

That Smartbunker exists at all is down to the vision and leadership of two men, Kelly Smith and Chris Brown.

Kelly and Chris have worked together effectively for 15 years. Since co-founding Centrinet Ltd* in 1995, the company has grown to support over 24,000 end-user organisations across 65 countries, making Centrinet one of the world's leading managed network service providers.

Co-founder and Managing Director Kelly Smith has more than 20 years’ experience at the sharp end of IT. As an in-house programmer for a leading insurance provider, early recognition of his skills led to a rapid transition into management roles. Kelly went on to steer his organisation through a period of unprecedented growth. In 1992 he moved to a leading software house to head up and establish a new secure communications unit, which in its first year won contracts with the UK Department of Trade and Industry. Kelly's abilities in business development, strategic investment and operational efficiency have been instrumental in Centrinet’s extraordinary growth.

Co-founder and Technical Director Chris Brown began his IT career as a freelance database programmer. A reputation for solving complex problems and a flair for telecoms and secure communications saw his skills in high demand, and before joining forces with Kelly he completed a number of successful high profile projects. Chris combines a deep level of technical expertise with a gift for commercial insight and inspirational leadership.

The Birth of Smartbunker

Having experienced the prohibitively high energy levels required to power and cool traditional data centres, Kelly and Chris became convinced that a new concept in managed hosting was overdue. They decided to start from the ground up and build a world leading, low energy consumption data centre. The result was Smartbunker.

Smartbunker is a new concept in quality managed hosting. Highly competitive on cost, it utilises the latest IBM low energy servers, a tier one BT backbone network, and runs entirely on zero carbon energy generated from wind turbines. And with 100% uptime guaranteed.

“Our customers have all the service and environmental benefits at no additional cost. We pay more for our zero carbon energy, but this is offset by the power saving derived from our constant subterranean ambient temperature, the design of our infrastructure, and of course our IBM low energy, high performing servers.”
Kelly Smith, Managing Director

* Smartbunker is wholly owned by Centrinet Ltd, award-winning provider of managed IT services.

About Centrinet:
Established in 1995, Centrinet is a provider of managed network services, supporting over 24,000 end-user organisations across 65 countries. For more information visit: www.centri.net

About Smartbunker:
Smartbunker, a division of Centrinet, provides managed data centre services including enterprise-class managed server hosting from self-owned and operated data centres. Smartbunker was created to provide leading professional grade service with minimal environmental impact, using zero carbon energy. Smartbunker’s customers are able to call upon the resources of an award winning support team, providing 24/7/365 global cover. For more information visit: www.smartbunker.com

A world of experience – Smartbunker’s 24x7x365 UK-based customer support team delivers managed services to some 24,000 end user organisations, handling over 55,000 change requests each year.