SINGAPORE - Property giant Lendlease announced on Monday (March 9) the appointment of Sam Lee as its managing director of data centres who will be based in Singapore.

Mr Lee will be responsible for leading Lendlease Data Centre Partners, the group's US$1 billion (S$1.38 billion) joint venture with a large institutional investor to invest in data centres in the Asia-Pacific. The partnership was launched in July 2019.

He will oversee both the sourcing and development of new data centres with the flexibility to acquire existing data centre assets across Australia, China, Japan, Malaysia and Singapore.

Lendlease's CEO Asia Tony Lombardo said in a media release the group wants to accelerate the growth of its data centre platform across major markets, with Asia Pacific as a priority.

He added: "Sam's expertise and proven track record will greatly augment our integrated capability across development, construction and investment to drive our data centre strategy. We are pleased to have him onboard to accelerate the growth of our data centre platform across major markets, with Asia Pacific as a priority."

Mr Lee has two decades' experience in the corporate real estate and asset management sectors. Most recently, he was the managing director at Global Switch, where he headed its Singapore operations. He was responsible for managing Global Switch Tai Seng, a data centre in Asia-Pacific with direct access to multiple major international cable systems, whilst also overseeing the development of its second data centre in Woodlands.

Formerly also the director of asset management for global data centre provider Digital Realty, Mr Lee was directly responsible for growing its Asia-Pacific portfolio of data centres, developing business strategies on growth opportunities and coordinating long-term plans with global customers to facilitate expansion.

Mr Lee graduated from the University of California, Berkeley and received his MBA in finance from the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago.