Martin McCarthy

Martin V. McCarthy is Chairman and CEO of Uptime Institute, The Global Digital Infrastructure Authority. Known as a true “Online Pioneer”, McCarthy is an innovator, operator, and monetizer. He has been a serial technology entrepreneur, acquirer and CEO for over 30 years, after early success in the consulting and telecommunications industries. Uptime, the Global Digital Infrastructure Authority, is the originator and owner of the proprietary Tier System of Data Center classification and certification. With staff in 28 countries, over 1,000 active projects in 85+ countries, over 3400 certifications awarded, and over 12,000 senior Digital Infrastructure professionals trained and accredited, Uptime’s mission is to assure available, resilient, efficient, secure ,sustainable digital infrastructure for leading enterprises, governments, hyperscalers, and colocation firms, and all clients that they serve, around the world. Uptime, through its unique corps of elite engineers, market, technology and strategy analysts, and educators informs, trains, assesses, advises and consults with all stakeholders in the Digital Infrastructure ecosystem. In January 2022 McCarthy led the recapitalization of Uptime with Dominus Capital, LLC a leading middle market PE firm based in New York. Early in his career, as Vice President, Office Message and Information Services at Western Union, the world’s first telecommunication company (founded 1851: the firm that designed, constructed and was operator of Arpanet for the US DOD, the precursor to The Internet), he helped lead the introduction of commercial email with EasyLink Electronic Mail Services as the successor technology to telex/TWX messaging. In the early 1990’s, he drove an MBO of the classic Wall Street publishing company (Investment Dealer’s Digest-IDD) and transformed it into a leading digital content and application resource for both Wall Street professionals and personal investors alike. At IDD, McCarthy digitized Barron’s, and led the core content and technology creation of the digital Wall Street Journal (WSJ Online). He sold the core of the IDD business to Dow Jones & Company in 1998, after negotiating an investment stake by Dow in 1995. In 2001 McCarthy acquired the nascent 451.com from Durlacher & Co in the UK, at the tail-end of the “Dot-Com boom.” Through multiple acquisition and business line extensions he transformed it into 451 Research, the 4th largest technology analyst firm in the world (after Gartner, IDC, Forrester). Since his sale of 451 Research to S&P Global in December 2019, McCarthy’s operating focus has been on the acceleration of growth of Uptime Institute, which has now expanded more than 20X since he acquired this firm in 2009. Uptime has long been recognized as a leading proponent of sustainability of data centers. McCarthy earned a BA, cum laude in the Philosophy of Consciousness from Maharishi International University, and an MBA with First Year Honors from Harvard Business School in 1983.