• Top 10 Data Center Influencers to Follow on LinkedIn
• A Thought Leader Concurrently Work in the IT and Energy Sector
• Envisions for Reaching a Zero Carbon Future for People, Planet and Profit to Lead the Most Environmentally Sustainable Pathway
• Most Outstanding Mothers in 2022 by Women Most Admired
• Stanford GSB Women’s Circle Global Management Board Member Leading Impact Analysis and Reporting to Help Growing a Thriving GSB Women Alumnae

In a “zero carbon future,” no greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change would be released through the combustion of fossil fuels of data centers and industrial operations. To motivate people and heads of state to concentrate on what is achievable and combat the challenge of climate change, it is vital to visualize a hopeful future. The story of Susanna Kass, the Co-Founder, Chief Executive and Circular Sustainability Officer of InfraPrime, is all about sheer determination, resilience, and grit that has brought her recognition and accolades in the world of cloud computing and energy. With a clear vision and unwavering perseverance, she challenged every stereotypical notion and fought all odds to become the successful businesswoman that she is today.

An Inspiring Success Story

“Fight for the things that you care about but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.” – Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Susanna was born in Hong Kong in the era of British Government Colonization. The country was a peaceful place without domestic protests or political disputes, as depicted in the news today. There were busy crowds at the open hawker markets, while ferries and sampan boats made their way to gigantic Oceania ships populating the Victoria Harbor between Kowloon Peninsula and the Hong Kong Island. Bamboo scaffolding and construction were at every street corner, competing to become the newest and tallest skyscrapers. Designer store fronts were in pristine shape across the globally renowned shopping haven for designer icons, as well as marketplace of local silk, jade, and wood handcrafts. Jumbo jets roared across the sky, transporting millions of global travelers.

As a child, Susanna was mesmerized to live inside this snow globe iconic city. Her ancestors fled to Hong Kong in hopes of starting a new identity. She grew up with two elder brothers, Lawrence and David. She shares, “We were baptized at birth by a Catholic priest and shared a happy childhood in minimal living conditions. Our family’s daily meal was one shared dish, and my parents never missed telling us a bedtime story.” Susanna recalls that her love for education and being a lifelong learner stemmed from the sacrifices and lessons taught by her parents.

Susanna learned English while attending Maryknoll Convent School in Hong Kong. An Irish nun named Sister Philippe helped her family advance to a better quality of life. Sister Philippe recognized Susanna’s talent and helped to send her to a boarding school in Westminster, UK for her secondary schooling, where she received honors in every class. Susanna received a scholarship, and with Sister Philippe’s guidance, she attended the Academy of Our Lady of Peace in California, USA; graduated with honors one year early.

Since her parents lived far away, and Susanna’s brothers were in boarding schools in different parts of the world, the family did not get to spend holidays together. She spent her time reading every book in the library and traveling to the imaginary worlds depicted by the authors. While gathering knowledge, Susanna journaled about how to make the world a better place for girls. She saw her quiet time as a gift, and she used it to hone herself into the person she is today: an independent thinker who is self-reliant and compassionate as a lifelong learner with a strong faith. She shares, “My childhood fairy tales were not princesses, as I was ignited by the invention of computers and science.” She graduated with honors from SDSU with a Bachelor of Science dual degrees in Computer Science and Business Administration Marketing. Susanna’s first job started during her junior year of college as a computer programmer software analyst. She worked at Digital Equipment Corporation and graduated with honors with an MBA from Pepperdine University, majoring in international finance and global management. She was promoted as the Southwest Area Director, leading a technical design consulting organization to build a peer-to-peer network service infrastructure of microcomputers competing against clients choosing the IBM’s mainframe SNA network.

She used her dual technical and business degrees to advance in her management career as a director of product management and was promoted to executive roles. She lived abroad in Europe and Asia Pacific countries, built her teams across 17 countries comprised of product managers, software programmers, and design technical architects. She worked with global Fortune 1000 clients to develop new product inventions and build business ventures from the ground up as General Manager for Network and Data Center APAC Operation at HP, Vice President of Global Data Center Operation at Sun Microsystems and Chief Operating Officer at eBay International. She spent 30 years in the IT/Data Center Sector and honed her skills to become a computer scientist and a clean energy researcher today for Clean Energy for America (ceforamerica.org), Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC.ch), and Institute of Engineers, Singapore (IES.org.sg). She was invited as a Data Center Advisor by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (UNSDG) Environmental Program. Concurrently, she worked in the Energy Sector for 14 years as Head of Innovation at NextEra Energy, EVP of Corporate Development and Sustainability Operation at Baselayer, and Co-Founder of InfraPrime.

As a lifelong learner, Susanna was invited to speak on her experiences as an entrepreneur while serving as COO of eBay International in MBA seminars. She was inspired by the enriching learning environment at Stanford University. She applied to the advanced business program for executives at Stanford University Graduate School of Business (GSB) and was a member of the graduating class of 2008. In 2022, she was offered a position as a board member to lead Impact Analysis and Reporting for the Stanford Global Management Board Women’s Circles Operations & Growth Committee to serve her alumni community.

Susanna continues to maintain strong linkages with each of her academic institutions she graduated, to which she was a recipient of awards. and in giving back to serve her alumni communities.

• Stanford GSB Women’s Circle | Growing a community of thriving GSB alumnae. She received Energy Fellow Award and has been invited back as a guest lecturer in Urban Sustainability Design in the School of Engineering, and a mentor at Stanford University, Stanford, CA.
• First Women Presidential Entrepreneur Award, Distinguished lecturer of the 2014 Presidential Lecture Series at San Diego State University, San Diego, CA. She continues to be a guest lecturer for the SDSU MBA program in IT and Cloud Systems today.
• Distinguished MBA Alumnus Award. Susanna gave the commencement speech, with Mirelle her 11-year-old daughter, to the 2009 MBA class at Pepperdine University at Malibu, CA.

InfraPrime

“Those who cannot burn themselves cannot spark fire in others, Dr. Alberto Ravagni, Managing Director, co-founder, InfraPrime quoted a German proverb, “Susanna inspires everyone around her, her community, followers, students, customers and a whole industry to focus every action into generating positive impact.”

InfraPrime is a Net Zero start-up based in Switzerland. The motivation behind co-founding InfraPrime with Alberto exemplifies the value of this new leadership. Susanna states, “As co-founders, our primary focus is on aligning our values with those around us for people, the planet, our environment and cloud growth profit in the Digital Transformation Era to a clean energy future. We use our creativity to innovate on net zero designs and solve real problems with efficiency, performance, and sustainability to address the cloud computing market to reach Carbon Neutrality pledges by 2030. The global market is at $200 billion annual run rate and expect to continue its growth for the decade.”

InfraPrime creates Net Zero (zero carbon, zero emissions, zero waste, zero dirty fuel, zero generator, zero water) design solutions and develop custom decarbonization services to expedite the goals to reach Carbon Neutrality for Cloud Computing and Grid providers. Since 2007, the founders have co-invented net zero designs, the UNSDG goals serves as the blueprint for the clients’ projects and had produced positive impact results; the data center clients have received innovation and clean energy awards.

InfraPrime founders were selected in the company’s first year by the European Union to lead the conceptual design of Clean Energy standard to promote a carbon-free future. Clean energy standards help to scale global growth and create a level playing field that will ensure sustainability for developed and developing countries.

“To know a job is well done is what’s important. We experience joy when we know the design, the build, the operation, and the maintenance of the data centers is working for our clients, not just when they share appreciation. It is similar to having children; they may not thank you for attending the sports practice, music recitals, or theatre performances, but your kids know it full well if you are not there,” Susanna shares her insights of practicing compassionate acts.

A Clean Energy Strategist

Speaking of the industry’s current scenario, Susanna believes that sustainability needs to be built in the cloud, not bolted on. She maintains that women professionals in the cloud, data center, ICT, and in the power energy sector should not be an exception. The results are profound when the gender barrier is removed. She further adds that nothing has come easy for her as a Chinese woman immigrant growing up and working in a male-dominated IT and power industry with continued challenges despite her achievements, patents, and awards.

There are three pillars Susanna follows to prepare herself to become a clean energy strategist.

Purpose and Passion: Being a clean energy strategist gives Susanna a purpose that aligns with her passion. She likes to put her mind and achievements toward making a difference and leaving a legacy. A clean energy strategist leads as an influencer. It allows her to use research, strategic planning skills, and patience by actively observing, listening to, and understanding each cloud computing builder, each data center operator, and each renewable energy (wind, solar) developer. She relates to each person and establishes a meaningful connection that will motivate and help them use design-thinking skills and create innovative solutions. She states, “For each kilowatt/hour we consume 24/7, their work can make a positive impact globally for the people, the planet, and business profits to transition to a clean energy future.”  

Fulfilment and Impact: A clean energy strategist feels rewarded when emissions and waste are removed, so that clean energy powers our digital infrastructure. Susanna operates in a trusted robust network with like-minded problem solvers. She believes that people learn from each other to build clean energy-powered cloud data centers. She personally led global teams during her career to build over 3.3-gigawatt renewable energy data centers projects and has scaled the growth. Susanna’s work has therefore alleviated millions of tons of emissions.

InfraPrime’s invention of good science goes a step further to transform waste to value creation of new product. Waste is reused to provide sustainability-related benefits to urban communities of residents and commercial businesses, for example, by reusing heat waste from the mega-sized and edge data centers and in using C02 (found in emissions from coal-fired fossil fuel and other industrial processes) as a thermal carrier. Data center clients can provide sharing infrastructure, free cooling and heating (which results in energy savings and no electric bills), and beneficial services for urban communities. This transformation of a waste to product strategy exemplifies a circular cloud economy and a symbiotic relationship that parallels nature.

Her ambition is to green the electric grids and remove tons of emissions and waste with reusage from the new data centers that will be built. Her strategy is to harmonize the new data center builds with the social needs of new mega cities that is expected to become the highest growth in human population according to the UN Migration study in the coming decades.

Additionally, Susanna and her clients are investigating sustainable materials that use clean energy in manufacturing and construction, materials that are free of the embodied carbon. Furthermore, the materials act as a repository storage for Co2 emissions. Her aims are to work with the clients to develop a digital materials passport; resources materials, emissions are monitored and reported throughout its life cycle. New buildings are designed for disassembly before it is built to alleviate waste to landfills, and regenerate materials throughout its lifecycle. It is part of the company’s decarbonization pathway roadmap. InfraPrime’s Net Zero Power Shell design aims to accelerate the clients to reach their time to market advantage to reach the Carbon Neutrality goals by 2030. Susanna’s ambition is to help scale 30 Gigawatts of more renewable energy clients’ projects to green the grid. On this daunting journey, the grid will be greener, and billions of tons of emissions will be avoided, and billions of liters of water will not be used. The supply chain suppliers can participate in the carbon neutral ecosystem on a level playing field with the hyperscale cloud pioneers for aggregate impact results. In 2022, InfraPrime has access to 11 Gigawatts in its investment Renewable Energy pipeline; its Grid partners currently are operating 8 Gigawatts of wind, solar roof-top projects with premier developers in Mainland China and across the Southeast Asia countries. These new projects when commissioned will elevate the USA and all Asia Pacific countries ranking, which are below top 10 and at the bottom rung of the Environmental Health Performance Index (EPI).

Equanimity: “It is important to always remember to connect with our inner calling, no matter how hard losses and failures are. Be resilient and practice the value and virtue of equanimity,” says Susanna. “The future holds promises and dreams; naturally, the younger generations are more in tune with sustainability. I admire my daughters for embodying the joy of learning, dedication, and courage.” Bronte and Mirelle inspire her; she is in awe of their talents, kindness, perseverance, and humor as global citizens in their respective careers. Currently, Bronte works at Stanford University while pursuing her Master of Science in Foreign Service at Georgetown University and Mirelle works at the Child Mind Institute while attending Columbia University’s Post-Baccalaureate Pre-Medical Program.

As a clean energy strategist, Susanna gives gratitude to her parents and to Mother Nature for her healing power. Her focus is living sustainably and minimally.

Transforming Companies for “People, Planet, and Profit”

Like every inspiring business leader who has started from the bottom and is working her or his way to the very top, Susanna has made it a priority to give back to her communities and achieving success in her professional capacities, establishing new businesses from the ground up and growing them into billion-dollar enterprises (corporate merger exits). The companies for which Susanna has traditionally worked are dominated by men, with a primary focus on profits and share prices. InfraPrime seeks to take on a new approach to leadership. Susanna and Alberto are a new breed of “authentic leaders” who act as clean energy ambassadors and energy ethics influencers to transform a new leadership generation of companies for people, planet, and profit. In doing so, the duo paves the way for those who come after.

Founders’ roles and responsibilities vary at each stage of a startup’s lifecycle. Often, the character of the founders sets the pace of the culture. Alberto and Susanna are entrepreneurs and authentic leaders who place their emphasis on people. She states, “Our team consists of high value external partners and senior advisors who have deep connections in the industry and hold dignified respect for each other achievements. Our role is to de-risk as we pursue new opportunities in refining our vision and values for practical projects with impact in results to scale globally.”

InfraPrime collaborates with its clients to perform better and achieve growth in a sustainable future now. “Focus is our filter; our time is not used to work on a longer list of shiny objects, but we use our time and expertise to solve real business problems and the gaps and challenges that organizations and cloud providers cannot do themselves. Therein lies the value of InfraPrime – to address key market opportunities efficiently to produce impact results and to collaborate with our clients in our projects,” Susanna adds.

InfraPrime is known to lead innovatively in net zero designs for data centers. Regarded as a key contributor to the industry, the company is respected for its reputation in its value disciplines; customer centricity, innovative, and operating efficiency to relentlessly drive the achievement of impactful results for clients, providing them faster time to market, high value to achieve the Carbon Neutrality goals.

“We are good science researchers to anticipate where the puck is going to be, the past does not need us; the future does,” says Susanna. “We are working to provide ‘Energy Resilient Net Zero Availability Zone As=A=Service with the Utility Thought Leaders’ for our Data Center clients. The concept is simple – A Clean Grid 24/7 matched with The Data Center Clean Energy and Resilient requirements at the optimal contracted pricing. We invite urban communities to embrace Net Zero data centers into their neighborhood for its clean energy source, with big energy savings of free cooling and heating services for every commercial, industrial, and residential communities. We are tackling an enduring change of Cloud Data Centers to address all emission types.”

InfraPrime is led by minimalistic people who work in Switzerland, and the Silicon Valley, California, and Asia Pacific countries. Susanna shares, “We often conduct our meetings virtually, we visit our clients at their data centers.” The clients are the experts who bring new ideas to the conversation. “We innovate with a purpose, build a plan behind a good idea. We are outstanding project managers with a focus on producing impact results with first mover time to market advantage. We support our clients in the industry for over 30 years, and we are learning from our clients every day. We have access to a robust network of good scientists/researchers, industry senior experts and premier partners support whom we draw upon to validate our designs and economic assumptions. Listening, observing and collaboration are the formula of our success so far. It is an urgent matter for us to tackle Climate Action, so it is too soon to tell but we are the ones driving the change with passion and our clients are sharing favorable progress in the news. Driving enduring change takes one step to lead to the next step at a time. We are inspired by our clients to help them achieve their goals. By doing do, we scale our own growth,” Susanna said with a smile.

Aspire to Make Change

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost sums up Susanna’s journey. She adds, “You need to make choices. There is an eloquence in the purity of our enthusiasm. So often in life, things that you regard as an impediment turn out to be great fortune. Constraints and rejections are not here to stop us; they are put in our lives with the purpose of training us to be more mindful thinkers who can find solutions.”  

Susanna considers that the impact of a carbon free future is important for upcoming generations, and current leaders must pave the way for the future. Susanna demonstrates how to make each moment count and live life fully, which is the GSB Women of Stanford University’s motto.

Susanna leads with authenticity and passion as a lifelong learner. She acts with her compassion for others. Her advice for emerging leaders is:

• Be joyful when others think your idea is their idea first, as that is a success criterion of innovation, when the idea is adopted as mainstream.
• Life is very short, be kind to yourself and we use time wisely to be purposeful and have a legacy.
• Live a fulfilling life, each day. The Cleanest Data Center is not powered by wind or solar, it is the one we don’t need to build; with each data center we must build, each megawatt hour we consume, uses clean energy.

The Data Center 007

Dr. Donald Kennedy, a friend and distinguished scientist who served as a late president at Stanford University, passed away with Covid in 2020; presented Susanna with the Energy Fellow honor to elevate Sustainability at the Farm. She was invited as a guest lecture on sustainability urban design systems at Stanford University’s School of Engineering. Subsequently, she has given seminars at the Cornell Energy System Institute, the UCLA Sustainability School, Columbia University, and the Danish Technical University (DTU) in Denmark. Susanna delivered lectures virtually at the National University of Singapore, the Institute of Engineering Society, Singapore, and on Energy Ethics at the University of Cambridge during the COVID-19 pandemic. She leads the keynote addresses on the UN Sustainable Development Goal conferences with speakers from AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, Meta-Facebook, the premier cloud providers at the UN City, Copenhagen, Denmark.

Susanna has been recognized for her work as a Climate 50 member for the third consecutive years. During COVID-19, Susanna was recognized by Women in Engineering to honor Frontline Engineering (women) and Innovators of the Pandemic. The women engineers worked harder to be problem solvers for society. Susanna mentored over 700 STEM students.

Capacity Media honored Susanna at InfraPrime’s clean energy inventions and projects by becoming a member of Power 100 and in 2022, Top 10 Data Center Influential Leaders to Follow on LinkedIn.

Susanna is a friend to the Data Center Dynamics, UK organization, she frequently spoke at their events in Silicon Valley, San Francisco, New York, Dallas, Stockholm, London, and Singapore. She was invited to serve as the judge for the DCD Industry Innovation Award for over 5 years. The Institute of Engineers Singapore invited her as a judge to promote young Asian women engineers to compete for global scholarships and product engineering sponsorships. She was invited to give the keynote address at The National Engineering Day Competition for the second year and at the Charles Rudd Distinguished Lecture Series. The Danish Data Center honored her to judge the prestigious Sustainability Award at Copenhagen, Denmark is # 1 Cleanest Country ranked by the Environmental Performance Index; the prestigious winners include Google, Microsoft Data Center Sustainability Innovation Teams.

Susanna carries on in her daily beauty of grit, determination, and endurance in that she is referred to as the Data Center 007 in the industry. It is deserving over 30 years; Susanna remains a member of Climate 50, is recognized to be the Top 10 Data Center Influencers to Follow on LinkedIn by Capacity Media. She is recognized Top 50 Women Leaders in San Francisco and Most Outstanding Mothers in 2022 by Women Most Admired, she is proudest to share her last award with her daughters and family. You have a chance to connect and follow Susanna at Linked in, Twitter, and meet her in person

• September 14-15^th, 2022 Opening Keynote for Data Center Cloud in Austin, Texas
• October 17-18^th 2022 DCD Connect London, Westminster, United Kingdom
• May 10-11^th 2023 DCW Frankfurt, Germany

In Pursuit of Greater Success for People, Planet and Profit

While sharing her vision for the organization, Susanna sees InfraPrime clients attending COP27 and in developing SDG Impact plan to reach the Carbon Neutrality Goals by 2030. She sees the new generation taking more active leadership in Clean Energy administration as fossil fuel investments drop drastically. She is optimistic of The Inflation Reduction Act is an important legislation to achieve the US Transformation Goal. She has a positive outlook that we can maintain the health of the planet; adhere to 1.5°C increase as the limit required to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. Susanna finds the global economy rise is a long-term topic so it will take more time to see the full effect of positive growth results. It may be in the next decades, but we need to take action in 2022, and with determination and resilience to push forward, using renewable energy from a green grid is feasible as a new business as usual normal for the next generation.

Website: www.infra-prime.com