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Laura Shepherd | Director of Data Centers Advisory | Colliers

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EliteX proudly features Laura Shepherd in this edition, recognizing a distinguished journey of leadership, innovation, and meaningful impact.

Laura’s journey into the data center sector was not a traditional one. Before joining Colliers in November 2025, she spent more than fifteen years at Cushman & Wakefield, where she worked across several areas, including bids, knowledge management, business development, revenue enablement, and market consultancy. These diverse experiences helped her develop a unique ability to organize information, identify opportunities, and turn complex data into valuable insights. Rather than following a single career path, she built a broad foundation that prepared her to succeed in an industry where different disciplines come together.

“Innovation delivers real value when it turns complexity into clarity and insight into action.”

At Colliers, Laura focuses on strengthening the company’s research and market intelligence platform across the EMEA region. Her work, together with her team, includes preparing market reports, conducting detailed research, comparing markets, analyzing locations, and supporting business development aimed at investors, developers, operators, occupiers, and hyperscale companies. Laura enjoys taking information from a rapidly changing market and transforming it into clear advice that helps clients understand both opportunities and challenges before making major investment decisions.

What attracted Laura to the data center industry was the unique combination of real estate, technology, energy, and infrastructure. She recognized that success in this sector requires much more than understanding property markets. Professionals must also understand power availability, fibre connectivity, sustainability, regulations, and the increasing demand created by digital transformation. This combination of technical and commercial knowledge makes the industry both challenging and rewarding.

Artificial intelligence also played an important role in shaping Laura’s interest in the sector. She saw AI becoming a major force that would transform businesses, workplaces, and everyday life. As AI adoption continues to grow, the need for larger and more powerful data centers is increasing rapidly. This creates new opportunities while also introducing new challenges that require careful planning and informed decision-making.

Laura believes that today’s biggest challenge is no longer creating demand for data centers because demand already exists across the market. The real challenge is finding practical ways to deliver that demand. Limited grid capacity, planning regulations, land availability, local infrastructure constraints and community opposition have become major obstacles in many regions. At the same time, technology continues to evolve quickly, forcing organizations to make long-term investments while adapting to changing requirements. She believes successful leaders are those who combine ambition with careful planning, balancing growth with practical execution.

Innovation plays a central role in Laura’s work, but she believes innovation should always serve a practical purpose. Rather than adopting technology simply because it is new, she focuses on solutions that improve the quality, speed, and accuracy of research and advisory services. Under her leadership, Colliers continues to strengthen its research capabilities through structured data, analytical models, market intelligence dashboards, and AI-enabled workflows. These tools allow teams to organize information more effectively and provide clients with reliable, evidence-based recommendations.

Laura also sees AI transforming the industry in two important ways. First, it is creating a new generation of demand for high-performance computing facilities that require greater power, advanced cooling systems, and larger campuses. Second, AI is improving how research, data analysis, and advisory services are delivered. While AI helps automate repetitive tasks such as data cleaning, monitoring, summarization, and drafting, she believes it cannot replace human judgment. In an industry where information changes rapidly and commercial decisions carry significant financial impact, expert knowledge and careful interpretation remain essential.

“The future of digital infrastructure will be built by those who connect technology, energy, and strategy.”

To stay ahead in a rapidly evolving industry, Laura and her team follow a simple approach built around data, people, and continuous learning. They study market information carefully, stay connected with industry experts across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, and regularly evaluate emerging technologies to understand where they can create real value. She believes that staying informed is not about predicting every future trend but about building the knowledge and flexibility needed to respond confidently as markets evolve.

Laura also encourages professionals from different backgrounds to consider careers in the data center industry. She believes the sector offers opportunities for experts in real estate, engineering, finance, sustainability, planning, legal services, research, project management, and advisory. More importantly, she believes curiosity and a willingness to learn across multiple disciplines are far more valuable than knowing everything from the beginning.

Looking ahead, Laura expects AI to remain one of the biggest drivers of industry growth. However, she believes energy strategy, renewable power, grid access, sustainability, and the growing infrastructure maturity of emerging markets will shape the industry’s future just as much as technological innovation. Her vision is for Colliers to become one of the most trusted, data-driven advisory firms in the data center sector, helping clients make confident decisions through reliable research, practical insights, and expert guidance. Through her leadership, Laura Shepherd continues to demonstrate that the future of digital infrastructure depends not only on technology but also on clear thinking, informed analysis, and the ability to transform complex information into meaningful action.

Read the latest Colliers EMEA Data Centers Market Report (H1 2026): https://www.colliers.com/en-xe/research/colliers-emea-data-centres-market-report-h1-2026

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