Leadership Team

Vlad is a seasoned IT veteran with over 25 years of mission-critical IT experience. Mr. Friedman joined the DataBank leadership team as Chief Technology Officer in 2017 with the acquisition of Edge Hosting. In his role as DataBank’s CTO, Vlad guides the direction for development, implementation, and management of the company’s overall technology strategies. Prior to DataBank, Mr. Friedman founded Edge Hosting, a compliance-driven IaaS and PaaS Managed Cloud Hosting service provider. He did so in 1998 as a spin-off from his first IT venture, ACS, which was started while he was still a student at the University of Maryland.

ACS was a software startup that created the only packaged solution for large scale automotive logistics processing that was widely adopted by auto manufacturers, port processors, and transportation carriers around the globe. Under Vlad’s direction, the company flourished to thousands of servers in geographically diverse data centers, hosting highly secure, mission-critical hosting for web and line-of-business applications.

As Co-Founder, Jerry Blair was instrumental in DataBank’s inception in 2005. In his role, Blair is charged with executing on the company’s sales strategy. With a successful track record spanning more than 20 years in senior sales management, Blair’s experience and proven ability to implement results-driven direct and channel-focused sales programs is a very welcome continued asset to the company. Prior to DataBank, Blair was Vice President of Sales for Switch and Data and LayerOne. He has also served as General Manager of Sales for Lucent Technologies and has held sales management positions with various industry leaders including ICG Communications, Nortel Communications, and Wellfleet Communications.

Mr. Puccio joined the company’s senior leadership team as Executive Vice President of Corporate Development in mid-2017 with a 20-year track-record of industry accomplishments. Mr. Puccio leads the company’s growth strategy and acquisition efforts. Prior to joining DataBank, Mr. Puccio served as a Director for Signal Hill, a tech-focused investment bank where he helped launch the internet infrastructure practice and managed several successful prominent industry transactions. Prior to Signal Hill, Mr. Puccio served as President and Founder of Satori Networks, Inc., a telecommunications research firm specializing in consulting services, industry research, and complex network builds.

Mr. Puccio also possesses diverse expertise in wholesale and enterprise technology applications, carrier relations, and corporate management, stemming from his roles in regional executive management at OnFiber Communications and Eureka Networks, and sales with Level 3 and MCI. Mr. Puccio graduated from Middlebury College with majors in History and French.

With over 25 years of experience in the telecom and IT services industry, JP brings a wealth of technical marketing and storytelling experience to DataBank. He leads a team responsible for all events, product marketing, digital marketing, and culture communications. Mr. Laqueur began his career at MCI where, as part of the company’s internetMCI marketing team, he played an integral role in the launch of the first commercial internet services. He subsequently served in key marketing and product marketing roles at PanAmSat, Qwest, Eureka Broadband, and Broadwing before launching BrandFoundations, a consultancy that conducted pioneering brand/culture integration work at Extreme Networks, Masergy, Voxel, NetAccess Corp, Net@Work, and many more.

JP graduated from Hobart College with a B.A in Political Science, and is past Chair of the NYC Chapter of Conscious Capitalism and current Board Member of Parks & Trails NY (www.ptny.org).

Joe Minarik joined DataBank as Chief Operations Officer in January 2022 and is responsible for all data center and colocation operations, engineering, construction, managed services, network and security, and IT operations. Minarik is a pioneer in the cloud and data center community, having joined Amazon in 2005, a year before the public launch of AWS. In his 16 years there, Minarik led the development of the company’s underlying data center and network infrastructure. In his most recent role as Global Head of Data Center Supply, Minarik was responsible for a multi-billion dollar budget and all data center strategy and procurement activities across a footprint of 25 regions, 18 Availability Zones and 275 Points of Presence.

Prior to joining Amazon, Minarik held senior IT positions at leading brands such as Disney and Napster. He received his B.S. in computer Science from the University of Michigan.

Kevin Ooley took on the role of President in 2017 and has served as DataBank’s Chief Financial Officer since 2011. He has over 20 years of extensive experience in delivering shareholder value through the creation and implementation of growth and operational strategies. Prior to joining DataBank, Ooley served as the CFO for the Thompson Media Group and as a Principal at Lovett Miller & Co., a growth capital private equity firm based in Florida. He was also a Director of Strategy for iXL Enterprises and a Manager in Accenture’s Strategic Services practice. Ooley holds a Bachelor of Industrial Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Master of Business Administration from Duke University.

Raul Martynek joined DataBank in 2017 as the Chief Executive Officer. In this role, he defines the strategic direction of the company and its operations. Raul is a 20+ year veteran in the telecom and Internet Infrastructure sector. He most recently served as a Senior Advisor for Digital Bridge Holdings LLC. Prior to Digital Bridge, he served as CEO for New Jersey-based data center and managed services operator Net Access, LLC. Net Access was acquired in 2015 by Denver-based data center operator Cologix. 5Prior to Net Access, he was the CEO of Voxel dot Net, Inc., a global managed hosting and cloud company, which was acquired by Internap Network Services Corp. in 2012. Mr. Martynek also served as the Chief Restructuring Officer of Smart Telecom, a Dublin, Ireland-based fiber carrier which was acquired by Digiweb in 2009.

Before that he evaluated investment opportunities in the telecommunications and Internet sector as a Senior Advisor at Plainfield Asset Management, a $4B hedge fund. Prior to Plainfield, Mr. Martynek spent 13 years with telecom and Internet provider InfoHighway Communications Corp; first as Chief Operating Officer of Eureka Networks and then as President and CEO of InfoHighway. InfoHighway was acquired by Broadview Networks in 2007. Mr. Martynek earned a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Binghamton University and received a Master Degree in International Affairs from Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs.

Ben Lowe joined DataBank as Chief Financial Officer in October 2026 and is responsible for leading the finance, accounting, treasury, and capital markets functions. Mr. Lowe brings extensive experience across the digital infrastructure industry to the role, including scaling financial operations and capital structures in both public and private equity-backed organizations. Most recently, he served as Chief Financial Officer at Radius Global Infrastructure, which specializes in the strategic acquisition and management of critical digital infrastructure assets. Prior to that, Mr. Lowe served as SVP of Corporate Finance and Treasurer at Crown Castle, one of the largest independent tower operators with approximately 40,000 wireless towers in the U.S., and also held an operational leadership position as Vice President of Leasing and Real Estate Operations. Earlier in his career, he spent time as an equity research analyst at Stifel Nicolaus with coverage responsibility across the data center and wireless tower industries.

Mr. Lowe holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics with a minor in Political Science from Lenoir-Rhyne University and is a CFA charterholder.

Jennifer Curry Hendrickson leads DataBank’s product and technology teams as SVP of Managed Services. She is responsible for the architecture, design and engineering, service delivery and support of the company’s managed services and network service offerings.

Jennifer has 18 years of experience in the industry leading technology and customer operations teams. She most recently served as INAP’s Executive Vice President, Product and Technology leading operations and engineering for all product lines, service delivery and technical support as well as customer success. Prior to that role, she served as Senior Vice President, Product and Technology focused on network and cloud.

Prior to DataBank, Jennifer held several senior positions in the data center and telecommunications industries. She served as vice president at Zayo Group, vice president of systems engineering, implementations and IT at Latisys, and senior manager of software at Level 3 communications.

Jennifer holds a Bachelor’s of Business Administration from the University of Notre Dame.

Mark serves as DataBank’s Chief Information Security Officer and is responsible for developing and maintaining the company’s security program road map and data center compliance programs. He brings over 30 years of extensive information security and information technology experience in a wide range of industries and institutions. Mr. Houpt holds an MS-ISA (Masters Information Security and Assurance), numerous security and technical certifications (CISSP, CEH, CHFI, Security +, Network+) and qualified for DoD IAT Level III, IAM Level III, IASAE Level II, CND Analyst, CND Infrastructure Support, CND Incident Responder, and CND Auditor positions and responsibilities.

Mark is an expert in understanding and the interpretation of FedRAMP, HIPAA and PCI-DSS compliance requirements. He is an active member of ISC2, ASIS International, COMPTIA, IAPP, and ISACA, among other leading national and international security organizations. Mark drives DataBank’s information security and compliance initiatives to ensure that the company’s solutions continuously meet rigorous and changing compliance and cyber-security standards.

With a wealth of experience in cloud, hosting, data center, and telecommunications, Mr. Callahan brings over 20 years of executive sales leadership to DataBank. In his role as Executive Vice President of Sales, Mr. Callahan is responsible for guiding all of DataBank’s sales operations, sales programs, and channel strategy. Prior to DataBank Mr. Callahan served as the SVP of Sales for New York-based Packet Host. Before Packet, he was the SVP of Sales and Marketing for Cologix, formerly Net Access. He also served as SVP – Global Sales at Internap Network Services Corporation, and as a Board Member of Internap Japan, where he originally joined in the acquisition of Voxel dot Net, a global managed hosting and cloud company, where he served as SVP of Sales and Marketing.

In addition, Mr. Callahan has also held a number of senior sales leadership roles with MCI (now Verizon Business), eLink Communications, Eureka GGN, InfoHighway Communications and Broadview Networks. Steve received his B.A. in History and Economics from Muhlenberg College.