Canara has added Chris Oberkfell as the company’s chief operations officer. Oberkfell will report directly to newly appointed CEO Tom Mertz and be focused on optimizing day-to-day operations for Canara and ensuring the company’s ability to execute and deliver on growth strategies and initiatives.

Oberkfell joins Canara from QTS Realty Trust where he was vice president of sales operations for the data center services company. While at QTS, Oberkfell focused on rebuilding Marketing and establishing scalable sales and support processes to accommodate growth. Prior to his time at QTS, Oberkfell held a variety of leadership positions with Internap Network Services, where he was responsible for enhancing growth and profitability across product, sales and channel operations.

“Chris has a broad set of experiences in the data center industry and ability to adapt, manage and improve processes to drive business performance. With his knowledge of the industry and ability to help organize and develop the team, he is an important addition to the Canara leadership team,” said Mertz. “I look forward to working with him to execute against our growth plan.”

“Canara is poised for renewed growth. The technology platform and associated monitoring services provide critical visibility into power system performance, and help predict and pre-empt costly battery failures,” said Oberkfell. “To realize our growth vision and extend this platform across all critical areas in the data center, we need to continue to develop and improve our people, processes and support tools.”