As a high schooler, she foresaw the wonders of the World Wide Web. Today, Lindsey Bruner is a data center C-suite executive working to enhance access to connectivity.
The year was 1996 and high school yearbook editor-in-chief Lindsey Willison (now Bruner) seemed to have a crystal ball as she excitedly wrote about V.I.T. High School’s entrance into cyberspace and the new frontier known as the World Wide Web.
“It’s the doorway to a vast world of information,” Lindsey wrote, describing how students could access a wide variety of sources for reports and papers simply by typing in a single keyword. “It brings new opportunities to students that were unheard of only two years ago,” she said. “The possibilities are endless.”
It was big news for any high school in the early days of the internet, but particularly thrilling in the small midwestern farming community of Ipava, IL., with its corner grocery store, single gas station, and population of less than 400.
“It’s a means to bring together people who might otherwise never meet and to share information that can benefit the whole,” wrote Lindsey, citing the potential for cancer researchers in New York to share vital discoveries with the entire medical community in minutes via email (which was also then new).
It was just one of many insightful observations Lindsey relayed in her article on the high school’s first-ever computer lab and internet address. Perhaps not surprising for the 17-year-old salutatorian who would go on to graduate from Duke University, earn a law degree and an executive MBA, and become Chief Operating Officer at CleanArc.
“I remember thinking how much bigger the internet made the world, but also how much smaller it made the world,” said Lindsey recalling her family’s early home computer, with its clunky monitor and 5 1/4 inch floppy disc drive. “It seems almost prescient that I ended up in the data center industry.” Ipava, IL.
Prescient indeed, particularly since her goal didn’t start out that way. “I wanted to be an NFL player’s agent and did actually work for both an NFL team and an NFL agent in law school,” said Lindsey, the daughter of a farmer and a school teacher who, along with her sister, grew up in a family of major football fans.
Life had other plans, however. After earning her law degree, Lindsey worked for a few private law firms in Denver followed by a stint as in-house counsel for the Americas division of RES Group, one of the world’s largest independent renewable energy companies. “One day a recruiter asked me if I’d ever heard of a data center. I said ‘no’ and she filled me in.” And so in 2016, 20 years after that yearbook article was published, Lindsey ended up at CyrusOne, a major data center operator that operates over 40 data centers in North America, Europe, and Asia today.
As Vice President of Project Development at CyrusOne, Lindsey led the company’s global project development team, overseeing the advancement of major data center pipelines across the U.S. and Europe.
Lindsey joined CleanArc in 2023 as its Chief Operating Officer, responsible for all business and technical operations and the coordination of all business units toward the execution of the company’s strategy. She’s also a role model for women in the male-dominated technology industry and was recently recognized by CIO Views magazine as one of the Top 10 Empowering Women Leaders to Follow in 2024. Calling her a “beacon of inspiration,” the magazine noted Lindsey’s strong emphasis on mentoring the next generation. Lindsey is a member of several women’s industry groups and is a sought-after conference speaker.
“I have been incredibly fortunate to have had really phenomenal mentors and sponsors – both men and women – who have supported me on my career journey, and they have been key in helping me develop as a person, an employee, and a leader to reach the position I have today,” said Lindsey. “It’s a mission of mine to pay that forward.”
Like her 17-year-old self, Lindsey hasn’t lost her enthusiasm for the internet. She sees tons of possibilities ahead for the important role of data centers in connecting the world.
“Today, the power of that entire computer lab sits in the phone in my hand right now,” she said, noting the extraordinary technological advances that have been fueled by the internet. “From online banking to telehealth to collaborative workplace apps to the social media networks that replaced the original chat rooms, the internet has connected us in ways once never thought possible, all of which continue to make the world both bigger and smaller. And data centers are right at the core of that entire digital experience – keeping the modern world running.”
In looking back on her predictions, Lindsey said she’d keep a lot of the same themes, particularly regarding the internet as a tool of connection, communication, and community as she described in her yearbook article so many years ago.
That concept is captured in a quote by J. Robert Oppenheimer that formed the subtitle of Lindsey’s yearbook article, which she closes with here:
“The open society, the unrestricted access to knowledge, the unplanned and uninhibited association of men for its furtherance – these are what may make a vast, complex, ever growing, ever changing, ever more specialized and expert technological world, nevertheless a world of human community.” – J. Robert Oppenheimer
