Montera Taps Veteran CFO to Fuel Hyperscale Data Center Ambitions

SAN FRANCISCO, April 15, 2026 – Montera Infrastructure, a hyperscale data center developer backed by a formidable $1.5 billion from Stonepeak, has appointed veteran financial executive Ashley Codd as its new Chief Financial Officer. The move is a clear signal of the company's aggressive strategy to carve out a significant share of the booming digital infrastructure market in North America.

Codd, who brings two decades of experience from leadership roles at Iron Mountain and Procter & Gamble, will be responsible for steering Montera's financial strategy, capital planning, and risk management. Her appointment comes as Montera aims to accelerate its mission of building and leasing strategically located, rapidly deployable data centers designed for the immense power and cooling demands of artificial intelligence and cloud computing.

A Proven Architect of Billion-Dollar Growth

Ashley Codd's track record is distinguished by a rare ability to scale capital-intensive businesses to massive valuations. Before joining Montera, she spent nearly a decade at Iron Mountain, where her most recent role was as the operating CFO for the company's two fastest-growing divisions: Data Centers and Asset Lifecycle Management. She was instrumental in guiding both segments toward the billion-dollar revenue milestone, giving her deep, firsthand experience in the financial mechanics of the digital infrastructure ecosystem.

Her career began at consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble, where she managed vast portfolios and was credited with scaling two separate brands into billion-dollar global entities. This history of successfully growing four distinct business units to the billion-dollar mark was a key factor in her recruitment.

"Ashley has had a transformative impact in every role in her career, and she is one of the most respected financial executives in the data center industry," said Eanna Murphy, Montera's Founder and CEO. "She has successfully architected and led the growth of four business units or brands to the billion-dollar revenue mark. And she has done amazing work that enables the delivery of capital-intensive data center projects at scale. Her financial leadership will be invaluable in driving Montera's growth."

In her new role, Codd joins a powerhouse leadership team comprised of industry veterans from Google, Oracle, and Equinix, who collectively have delivered over 8 gigawatts (GW) of data center capacity to market. "I am thrilled to join the incredible leadership team at Montera," Codd stated, highlighting the "powerful vision for the future of digital infrastructure" as a primary draw.

Fueling the AI and Cloud Infrastructure Boom

Montera's strategic moves are set against the backdrop of unprecedented demand for data processing and storage. The North American hyperscale data center market, valued at just under $55 billion in 2025, is projected by some analysts to surge past $250 billion by 2031, driven by the explosive growth of generative AI and the relentless migration of enterprise operations to the cloud.

AI workloads, in particular, require a new class of infrastructure. They demand immense computational power, leading to rack power densities that can be ten times higher than traditional data centers and necessitating advanced solutions like liquid cooling. Montera, which launched in April 2025, was purpose-built to address this specific need. The company focuses on developing single-tenant hyperscale campuses with standardized, scalable designs, including 108-megawatt (MW) facilities and configurable 36 MW blocks, engineered specifically for AI and cloud deployments.

This specialized, engineering-led approach is designed to provide the execution certainty and speed-to-market that major cloud providers and large enterprises require. By focusing on securing large land parcels with clear paths to near-term power in key Tier I and Tier II metropolitan areas, Montera aims to bypass some of the bottlenecks currently plaguing the industry.

The Power of Stonepeak and a Veteran Team

Montera’s ambitious plans are made credible by the substantial financial and strategic backing of Stonepeak, a leading alternative investment firm with over $84 billion in assets under management. Digital infrastructure is a core pillar of Stonepeak's investment strategy, and Montera represents its fourth data center platform investment in North America and eighth globally.

This deep-seated expertise provides Montera not only with capital but also with invaluable market intelligence and a network of global relationships. Stonepeak's portfolio includes established players like Cologix and CoreSite, giving the firm a panoramic view of the evolving needs of the digital economy. The $1.5 billion equity commitment to Montera underscores a strong conviction in the company's operator-led model and its ability to capture a slice of the estimated $2.2 trillion global investment required for new data center capacity through 2028.

The firm's leadership team is a critical component of this strategy. CEO Eanna Murphy previously led data center development at Google and Yondr, while other key executives like CTO Craig Pennington and Chief Delivery Officer Joe Walsh bring decades of experience from hyperscale and colocation giants such as Oracle and Equinix. This collective expertise in delivering complex, large-scale projects is central to Montera's value proposition.

Navigating a Competitive and Power-Hungry Market

Despite its strong backing and experienced team, Montera enters a fiercely competitive arena. It will vie for land, power, and talent against established colocation providers like Digital Realty and Equinix, as well as the hyperscale giants—Amazon, Microsoft, and Google—which self-build a significant portion of their own capacity.

The appointment of a high-caliber executive like Codd highlights the intense "war for talent" within the digital infrastructure sector, where experienced financial leaders capable of managing multi-billion-dollar capital projects are in high demand. Her decision to join a relatively new venture over established players is a significant endorsement of Montera's vision and potential.

However, the greatest challenge for Montera and its competitors will be navigating the industry's primary constraint: power. The electricity required for a single large AI data center campus can rival that of a small city, and securing sufficient power from utilities has become the main bottleneck for new development across North America. Projects often face lengthy delays due to permitting, zoning, and the sheer time required to build new energy infrastructure.

In this complex environment, Codd's expertise in capital planning and risk management will be critical. Successfully financing and de-risking projects that require massive upfront investment and long-term power commitments will be key to Montera's ability to execute its ambitious build-out plan and establish itself as a key player in building the foundational infrastructure for the next era of technology.