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The Navvai Shift – AI & Business Insights
Welcome to The Navvai Shift, the podcast where business leaders in finance share their journeys, challenges, and unfiltered thoughts on artificial intelligence. We dive deep into how AI is shaping industries, uncovering real-world insights from those driving innovation.
Subscribe for expert conversations on AI, automation, and the future of business.
Hi guys, welcome back to another episode
of the Nabi Chef. I do have a wonderful
guest. Her name is Marisa and she is the
vice president of marketing for
Enlighten. Marissa, how are you? You
well? Good. Really excited to be here
Joshua and I think just the two of us
will be just as exciting. No, 100% 100%.
Let's keep the energy throughout. So
indeed. So for the people that are not
too familiar with enlighten and
yourself, would you be able to give us
just a brief introduction to yourself
and enlighten? So I'm Arisa. I'm Dutch
but based out of UK for a while now and
I work with Enlighten as a vice
president for marketing and enlighten is
all about building sustainable high
performance edge data centers across
Europe. And I know for some of the
listeners is like okay what is a data
center? So what I often say is that
anything that is in your phone any
application somewhere need to reside
into a building on a computer on a on a
server. So that's what we're doing.
We're hosting those environments where
your applications can run smoothly
without interruption and continuous
connectivity.
Nice. Nice. We know um from speaking
with a lot of guests we know that data
is you know super important but um I
wanted to ask how is it enlightened
stands out from the crowd or stands out
from the competition.
So I think there's three things that
really are the core of our existence and
we kind of link it to the words close
coupled and connected. So close is about
being physically near our customers. So
when there is like you know 5 million
people in a 40 kilometer radius we think
there is sustainable you know enough of
business for us to have a data center.
So that is about the close being close
to the edge then coupled so we really
think that we have a mission or we need
to be thinking about building
sustainable data centers with heat reuse
renewable energy and really an efficient
design and lastly about being connected.
So this is about being having a data
center, an ecosystem with carriers,
cloud and partners that are connected
and that give a digital platform for all
of those applications to run smoothly.
Nice. The three C's. Three C's. Yeah.
Was that was that embedded in the
company from like the very beginning or
was it something that was like as time
went on they were like these are the
three this is our goal here. This is
what we want to be known for.
So our founders Chad McCarthy and Harold
Boskar they did have a good brainstorm
just a few years ago in 21 and they
thought about building this business and
I must admit you know from early on they
thought about those three pillars. I
think we changed the word coupled. It
was originally green but I think you
know when we talk with sustainability
professionals and we started going on
this journey we realized that green is
not so much a term that is seen as the
most relevant term for the efforts that
we do and that's why we changed it to
coupled.
So Mishka you did mention the three C's.
How do you actually like communicate
this message?
So I think that's a really good question
Darno and I think we you just joined
here. So good to have you on the call as
well. Wrapping up another call. My bad.
Yeah. No, no, good. So indeed when we
talk about um you know the couple this
you know those elements that are really
building a sustainable environment and
when we say how do we bring that to
life? So for example, when my CEO has a
conversation, he uses those three
pillars in his conversation. When we do
a newsletter, we build building blocks
with news related to those three
pillars. You know, when we have a white
paper, we always want to make sure that
it touches on one of those three as a
core element in the conversations. The
case studies with our customers are all
about one of those three pillars. So for
example, we have a customer which is
conscious solution which just signed up
with us most recently and they chose us
because we are close to where their
business is. You know they're in
Bristol, they are in Bristol. They can
come to the data center easily. You know
their applications are run smoothly in
our environment but the proximity the
closeness was a core reason for them to
choose us. Yeah. So, just touching on
close, couple, and connected again, it's
a there's almost like a story behind it.
And uh it's it's so interesting that I
link the three C's to the stories
because I feel like we've been some of
the people that we've been speaking with
recently who've been helping us. Uh, of
course, with the business and the
podcast, they've all been telling us
about the story. It's very, it's just
easy for some for people to resonate
with. So, I find it really impressive.
It was just like a No, you're so right.
Yeah. I think your podcast has a story
as well and I think it's lovely to see
you as founders in this call and you
know building that story as well and the
same what we're doing with a businessto
business environment like us you know
and I think it is really about all of
the departments that we have they're
close to what we're saying in our
communications you know with our
customers with our suppliers because
it's definitely something that we see
now in the industry as as the core
elements you know building a platform
that is not just in the centers like
Amsterdam, London but is at the edge you
know building a platform that is about
sustainability coupled and building a
platform where we need different
suppliers a cloud supplier as well as a
carrier and that's the connectivity bit
I'm sensing the synergies right now yeah
me too but Marissa you know looking at
the next 12 months like what's the
biggest growth opportunity for enlighten
that you know excites you
so I I think Just for understanding of
the listeners here, we started in 21 and
we started with three people. Now we're
in 25 which is just like you know four
years later and we're at 250 people. So
you know I think in the next 12 months
we'll be really accelerating growing our
team and it's not just about adding more
people but it's about adding more
professional layers of running this
business. So that means that we're able
to get spec specific task in our finance
team, in our customer service team, in
our operations team and that's all
because we want to do a better job for
our customers. So I think what you see
is that it's the you know the biggest
challenge for us all is to see that we
take the growth in steps. We do it
diligently and we continue to serve our
customers with anything that we do.
There's quite a lot of things that
excites you about it. On the flip side,
is there any gaps that you're trying to
tackle at the present moment?
I think me as a as a VP of marketing and
I've been with bigger companies where
you know there's certain functions that
are amazing to have you know certain
special you know people that is amazing
to have and I think for me the challenge
is to see that I would like to go as
fast as possible you know but it's also
about where you are in the maturity of a
company and what you can do so I think I
need to find a way that I you know
stimulate my team to do their utmost,
but I'm also looking at the balance that
we have. You know, I I think we don't
want to wear them out. We have some
amazing people, so let's make sure that
we give them a balance of work hard and
play hard sometimes. Yeah. No, it's
nice. So, your interest, Marisa, how do
you go about hiring the best people
then?
So, the data center industry is is a
group of people that's not huge, you
know. So I was at the event last week in
Ken and we were 4,000 people of the core
leaders. So just imagine that in
addition to those 4,000 there's probably
multiple of of other people adding but
we all kind of know each other. So
obviously we learn from being in one
company and then moving to the next. you
know, we recruit from our colleagues in
the industry, our peers, but we also
trying to add people that are just
coming from university. So, for example,
in France, we have an amazing apprentice
who started working with us two years
ago and wasn't familiar with the
industry and now he's really doing a
great job. So, it's a mix about finding
people that we know, that we see with
our colleagues, with our peers, and
trying to energize the new generation
that data centers are really exciting.
Nice. You've um I know you've not been
at the company for very long, but you've
done some amazing work at the company,
hence your position. So, I know you've
um done some work with the database and
you've boo you've boosted engagement not
by 20 to 70%. How do you use like
datadriven marketing to you know get
exceptional results?
So I think indeed uh data is you
mentioned as well data is so important
and when we say data for us it means you
know contacts persons you know we need a
CTO from a company in Germany as well as
you know the engineer in France in our
database you know so it's not the
abstract word of a data we need persons
in our database and I think that also
touches on on how we grow that database
it's about giving them relevant content
giving them a newsletter with an article
that they think resonate that they will
read and that they might share with
somebody that isn't part of our database
yet. So, it's organic growth through
word of mouth, but also we use the SEO
tools, we use the videos, we use events,
you know, digital campaigns and that's
how we grow our database. So that's why
we were able to double our database in a
year and we're definitely growing our
impressions of the people that are
looking at our brand, looking at their
websites, looking at our white papers,
clicking on our newsletters every day.
So it's great to see that uh that growth
happening. Nice. I definitely feel like
we're super relatable to that. You know,
our email campaigns that are running,
hence how we got you on this podcast um
through the copy that was quite
exceptional. Creating organic content
that people resonate with. Sometimes
people like on LinkedIn and social
media, they like real organic content.
And because we're in the AI space, we
found that uh we recently created like a
like a cheat sheet on how to just simply
use artificial intelligence. And just
the impressions that we got off that
alone, it shows that, you know, if you
put out the right piece of content,
yeah, it can help you grow your database
and connects you with it connects you
with your your target market a lot more.
So, yeah. Yeah. So, how much would you
say AI has helped you, Joshua? I would
say there's a lot of tasks that we do on
a day-to-day basis, right? And for
example, like we've used like custom GBT
uh GPTs to simply create we call them
growth plans or we call them
presentations. So like when we're
speaking to clients, we like to present
them with an actual solution on how we
can help them. So instead of just you
know um you know typing it in each time
we have a GPT that literally understands
the structure of how we like each every
single presentation and literally we can
just put in a little piece of
information with the person that we've
spoken to and um it will literally build
it all out and then we can copy and
paste that into another tool and it
actually builds out that uh presentation
cough grammar. Uh so yeah but it helps
us it helps us a lot definitely. Yeah.
No, I think AI is changing our lives.
Oh, Darren, you you were saying to add
to what Josh said, I think cuz uh I'm
that the they call me the dancer dev
because I I'm the technical person of
NAI. So I I think the most significant
impact has in terms of actually reducing
the amount of code I have to actually
build. So say for example, I reckon it
probably saves me about 50% of the time.
Like it's it's not a joke. So I'm very
thankful for AI.
Yeah, it's amazing. And I I think people
sometimes are a little bit scared about
AI. I'm not. I think we need to embrace
it. But we also need to be conscious on
how to use it, you know, to look at
guidelines and to look at, you know, the
sovereignity of data, has it been
tested? Has it been trial? I still ask
people, okay, do we have the source of
whatever statement we use? So I think us
as as users of that information that is
served to us by AI, I think we need to
be, you know, serving it well and and
making sure that when we present it to
our external customers, we do our due
diligence. Yeah, absolutely. Cuz um I
think what we what we like to say as
well is that AI it's not going to like
take over take over people's jobs, but
more complement the job that you're
doing and that's what we have definitely
recognized. So obviously Josh gave his
example of the growth plans. I give my
examples doing the code. So, it's not
that it's taken over your job, but it's
literally just making you doing it a
hell of a lot easier, if you know what I
mean. Yeah, totally. So, how is I have a
question off the back of that now. So,
how is Enlighten actually using AI? Like
what's your what's your plans? What's
your vision in using it because I feel
like there's so many AI is very dynamic
and there's so many ways you can use it.
Yeah. And obviously all different
departments will use AI in different
ways. So using it with marketing you
know you know the examples just what you
mentioned you know scripts white papers
blogs we get a little help translations
you know we're really helped well you
know but also in our data centers you
know I think AI tools can help us
identify how we can be more diligent of
certain heat in a data center or certain
equipment being used more efficiently so
I think it's from the operations s as
well as from finance from a marketing
perspective will be using those tools to
um you know to be more conscious and
yeah to to make it all go a bit faster
maybe. Yeah, we found that um guests
that we speak to they often tend tend to
embrace you know new ways to solve old
problems. So how do you tend to find
fresh strategies or you know
partnerships to drive enlightened
growth?
I think marketing we're in a spot where
we do have a lot of people with bright
ideas you know and they're not hesitant
to try
you know so and that's what I'm telling
my team as well is like you know try
hard fail fast you know I'm happy for
you to give it a try try it for six
weeks eight weeks you know a new tool
you know a new concept a new application
give it to me you give it a try and I
will never tell you you did wrong. You
know, we always are right to do and try.
So I just say give me a new tool and we
try it. And then I also say 80% is good
enough. You know, we don't need to be
amazing at everything. If we have 80% is
good and we improve over and over again.
So I think with those two two core
elements, we're able to to give tools a
try. Nice. Nice. And is that is that
something you're doing inhouse or have
you looked at like external companies to
assist?
It's a mix. So and it's it's small
things. So I think most recently one of
my team members came to me and said okay
we have a boomerang idea. It's like okay
tell me what is the boomerang idea? It
sounds really exciting. You know I love
Australia. So give me the boomerang
idea. And it was really simple. You know
what he said is like okay we have a lot
of suppliers reaching out to us to sell
to us why don't we offer a conversation
with a seuite
uh person in enlighten but you know as a
gift we ask them to give a conversation
with a seauite in their organization
and it's a simple idea like that it
doesn't need to be sophisticated always
so we're now trying that idea and it
means that we've sometimes identify
ers in a supplier that we haven't talked
to and we might find a new supplier.
That's pretty impressive. So, I know
that you've you've scaled your team.
Now, in terms of like tasks, is it
something that you that you handle
yourself or, you know, do you tend to
pass tasks on to other members of staff
or use AI for it?
Yeah. So, I I think it's a mix. We are a
small team. So, we have a a team that
often have a field marketing role. So
they're you know related to activities
on the ground in a certain market as
well as a specialism. So that means for
example uh the person that runs field
marketing in Germany is also our brand
police. So she's monitoring anything
related to brand. At the same time
obviously in that role she uses AI you
know brand means website translations
that's where she used the AI you know
same for me. Yes, I have a VP title, but
I'm also the core person to manage the
PR teams. So, you know, we have a PR
team here in the UK and I work with them
closely and I think in that relationship
as well, we use a lot of AI. So, I think
it's all of us. We're not just managing
or you know having teams. No, we always
have a task that will keep us grounded
and you know so relevant for growing
this uh this I just have I just have the
feeling that your team just they just
all synergize together. They just work
very well.
Yeah. No, it's a lovely team. I have a
really nice team. They're super
enthusiastic and they're also coming
from all different corners and that's
what I like. We have an apprentice who
just, you know, came from school. We
have somebody had maternity leave and
came back recently and is flying again.
You know, we have somebody, you know,
he's with us in Amsterdam and has got a
really longlasting experience working
with different companies on on a
different level. So, I think it's it's a
whole different mix of insights that I
get from this team and they give me
energy and I hope that I can give them a
bit of energy to keep going. Nice. Nice.
That's super relatable. That's like
again working with my co-founders is
like literally every single day even
sometimes we have calls at like I mean
what time did we speak yesterday at like
11 and everyone just had energy like
it's 11:00 p.m. That's amazing. Yeah. 11
is the time that Yeah. You wouldn't have
the best energy mostly. That's true. But
sometimes I find that after I speak with
these guys my creativity is on like a
different level. So sometimes I'm up
even later than that and then Yeah.
Yeah. I know we end up having a call
early in the morning but I I still feel
pretty good. I can imagine. That sounds
great. I think that's what you need to
to have. What I always say, if you work
here, I want you to come in with a smile
and to leave with a smile. You know,
during the day, yes, there might be
hiccups and moments that might not be so
good, but you need to feel good about
coming and you need to feel good when
leaving. And if that's not the case, we
talk and we see if we can find a
solution because you spend so much time
at the office or on calls that it's
important to feel well and to be happy
with where you are.
Yeah, that's true. That's nice. You
would want that working for a company.
And I wanted to ask, do you have any
examples of where your team has like
nailed a huge project together? One
thing is indeed social media. Yeah. So
when you start I talk about the reverse
pyramid where we say okay we need to
start talking to a lot of people to get
our brand out and that is PR, social
media, you know databases, email
campaigns.
So we have our LinkedIn profile and a
LinkedIn profile is what it is but we
can you know really accelerate it. So
what we said we want to double it in
year one and we want to double it in
year two you know and I think what you
see is that the team is really putting
everything behind to get those followers
and it means that they're doing you know
trainings you know I had one team member
step up and say okay I will do be the
one that does the training for our
internal team you know another team
stepped up it's like okay I will be the
one that will do the designs you know
the the visuals the
you know another one stepped up and said
okay I will make sure that you know we
do the translations and we make it
relevant when we talk to a person in
France as well as person in Germany so
all of those things came together which
shows now that it's now what is it June
we're already at 88% growth of our
followers in 25 so that means that we
probably hit doubling our numbers in a
So, I think our ambition That's
impressive. That is impressive.
Yeah. And I I think that's a team effort
because we all believe that getting our
brand out there on social media, other
platforms is what will make us glow. I
was just going to say like absolutely. I
feel like we can definitely attest to
that because we was founded roughly
around 5 months ago and obviously our
followers have been a steady growth as
one of our views and I think from then
we've kind of realized we get like a lot
of referrals and people coming in
naturally as well. So I did want to ask
if you've kind of experienced the same
thing like has this has your increase in
followers translated into more referrals
for the company?
So I I think for us as a B2B we do see
interactions, we do see impressions but
LinkedIn is maybe not the one where we
get the most contact asking for you know
a conversation. So we do see that with a
followup of you know email campaigns you
know the face to face at events we get
good traction but I must admit is that
probably not LinkedIn where we get the
most referrals. So I think what's I
think what we have kind of experienced
which has been I don't know we didn't we
didn't anticipate this is because
obviously we have a podcast we post it
on LinkedIn and it just like more people
obviously oh yeah I want to jump on a
podcast I want to give my views and
expressions and then from there we've
actually formed partnerships and
conversations just through the following
going and then the reach growing and
then that's how I feel like the
referrals has been kind of indirect if
you know what I mean. It's it's been a
weird it's almost like we're just
getting inbound leads. It's yeah it's
pretty impressive. We didn't think it
would happen but yeah it's just
happening organically and I also believe
it's about your personality. Yeah
because if you as a person are active on
a platform instead of you as a company I
think that makes a big difference 100%.
You know, and I think that's where we're
trying to see, okay, how can we make our
corporate handle, which is indeed really
corporate, more personal because we want
our founders to be interacting. We want
our sales members to be interacting and
I think that's probably the advantage
that you have that you're so close to
that company and you're engaging
yourself so much. Yeah. No, no, that's
so true. Yeah, that's actually something
that we highlighted to um one of our
clients actually is we basically
highlighted to him that he he should
highlight a spokesperson within the
business to utilize uh well just to you
know be the face of the company or he
can be the person that's on the social
media platforms speaking um providing
information you know creating reals um
and just being that person. And so yeah,
it's we just relate to that actual
specific scenario of actually building
like a a personal brand. So of course I
know you got you know the main company
but you know having an actual individual
that people can go to and they can see
the face of just makes them resonate
with the brand a lot more. Yeah. Just
even just to add what what uh just to
add on back of what Josh said. I feel
like people they don't fall in love with
the company, they fall in love with the
person because obviously a person you
can speak to them, you can understand
their personality and as you said
Marisa, it's like people fall in love
with the personality, how you talk to
them, how you converse. So I feel like
that's one of the biggest lessons we've
learned is that not to promote the
company brand as much but then to like
repost something that we put on the
company, talk about it and give our own
personal view. So then obviously it can
be three of us. I can give my view. Jo
can give his view and then Deari who's
the f co-founder can give his view and
it's like free views that kind of
circulate around. I feel like that's
given us a lot more traction. I agree. I
think that's amazing. I think I can
definitely learn from that and uh yeah
talk to some people here to get them the
spokesperson role. If Deari was on this
call, he definitely would have said by
now people would uh people will buy from
you if they like you, know you and trust
you. So that's just totally
No, that's so right. I think that that's
a that's a close summary of what we need
to be. I think you need to be
trustworthy and the company need to be
trustworthy, you know, and I I think
that's what we need to realize as well
in in light. We have big ambitions, but
I think we're honest to our customers to
say we're not there yet, you know. We
still need to be to build heat reuse
projects in markets, you know. So yes,
we have one in Frankfurt. We're looking
at a few others. They're probably going
to happen this year, but bear with us.
You know, I think that's about building
trust, not overpromise. So true. So
true. I did want to highlight one thing.
So I know you guys are global. Are you
fair to say? I was just going to ask
where where is it you're based? So I'm
based in uh in London. Our headquarters
is in Amsterdam and we currently have 34
locations across Europe. So we're in
seven markets. We're in the UK UK,
Netherlands, Belgium, France, Spain,
Switzerland, and Germany. And we have a
big ambition to go to 100 sites in three
or four years. So that's a growth path.
That's absolutely impeccable. I'm I'm
pretty confident that we can help you
towards that mission. Um, yeah, there'll
be a lot of longevity within this
relationship that we have. Yeah, I love
that. Sounds good. But Marissa, I wanted
to ask, right? So having worked in data
centers for large firms to scale ups
what industry shifts are you seeing or
what do you anticipate coming? I think
it's you know one thing which is really
exciting is about the fact that you know
the edge platforms as in not just having
data centers in a London a Frankfurt or
a Paris but having it where there's you
know a good group of businesses and
people within a certain proximity of a
data center makes sense and I think it's
not just us saying it but it's also the
hyperscalers saying that and the
hyperscalers are you know the Googles
the the Amazons, uh, you know, those
ones. And I think it's lovely to hear
that what our founders thought was a
business concept four years ago is now
resonating in the market. So I think
that's one thing that I'm really excited
about. I think the other thing is about
sustainability. you know, we're able to
drive that, but we see that a lot of
companies and data centers are on that
path to think about heat reuse, you
know, generation on site, efficient
operations, and it's on a different
level than what I have seen in my
previous company. So, I'm really excited
about that as well. Nice, nice, nice. I
feel like you haven't covered it
entirely. What's one goal enlightens you
know chasing that shows future impact?
It's a good question Joshua. Let me give
you an answer.
So I think in the industry that we're in
you know there's a lot of competition
you know with uh you know people that
are you know aiming or fighting for
space for power.
I think for for me the ambition is that
there's a place for us all. There's a
place for a hyperscaler. There's a place
for an edge player. There's a place for
you know the data centers that are in
the Nordics. So I think for me the
ambition is to to see that we work
together and we make those connections
to actually serve our customers you know
who run or who use those applications
even better. So I think that's an
ambition to you know to create a space
where we have a digital platform across
different players that serve customers.
I take well
Marissa I want to say thank you. It's
been a it's been an absolutely great
podcast. You dropped a lot of gems, a
lot of gold. Um I'm definitely going to
rewatch this one over quite a few times.
So we all will.
Guys, it's been that's been another
episode of the Nova Shift. Thanks for
thanks for hopping on. Thank you so
much. But yeah, guys, that's been
another episode of Nova Shift. We've
been joined by Marissa. She's dropped
some incredible information. And um if
people wanted to find out a little bit
more about yourself, Marissa, or you
know, Enlighten, where could they find
you? Obviously our website enlighten.com
or on LinkedIn you know start following
us drop us a note do the form fill and
we'll be delighted to talk to you lovely
stuff we will link down and thank you so
much Josha and Darnell it was such a
pleasure to be part of this podcast I
really enjoyed it that you did joining
me yeah thank you all right guys that's
wrapped up Nice.