GETTING TO KNOW ZAHL
Zahl Limbuwala has led teams in process automation and robotics, digital control systems design, network engineering, systems engineering, electrical engineering and software engineering. He has worked in data center, telecoms and software businesses in both technical leadership and business leadership roles in the EU and USA. Most recently, he co-founded and was the CEO, of Romonet, a software company that provided advanced data center analytics and energy/cost optimization services to some of the world’s largest data center operators. With patented analytics and digital twin technology that was way ahead of its time, Romonet was acquired in early 2019 by CBRE’s Data Center Solutions group and integrated into their data center optimization offering. Zahl remained at CBRE and is now their executive director of strategy and market engagement for their data center group.
CBRE’S GLOBAL DATA CENTER SOLUTIONS (DCS)
CBRE DCS delivers fully integrated real estate, facilities and technology solutions for data centre owners, occupiers and investors across the globe. As a dedicated business line within CBRE, DCS is dedicated to solving complex challenges within every stage of the data centre lifecycle.
ZAHL’S CAREER PROGRESSION
After University, Zahl founded a second company that designed and built process automation robots for the industrial and production manufacturing world. The combination of analog circuit design, digital electronics and embedded control system software provided the seed for his now life-long enthusiasm for improving productivity and efficiency through automation and technology.
During the golden years of computerization and telecoms (the 1990s) Zahl worked for one of the first B2B Internet Service Providers in the city of London (UK) becoming a qualified Microsoft system engineer, Cisco network engineer and windows application developer. Having outgrown the engineering manager role of that small provider, Zahl moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in the US to join Digital Island, one of the early data center and managed services provider success stories of the dot com era.
Post the dot com crash Zahl ended up back in the UK working for telecoms provider Cable & Wireless as the EMEA director of their managed hosting division, and later their IP contact center managed service as well as their managed internet security services group. Zahl later became responsible for the secure hosting group that looked after critical UK government systems and services, including Europe’s largest secure email platform for the UK’s National Health Service.