DigitalBridge Poaches Two Brookfield Veterans in Digital Push

DigitalBridge is staffing up. The Boca Raton-based digital infrastructure investment firm announced Monday it's hired two executives from Brookfield Asset Management to bolster its deal team — a signal that deployment is accelerating as data center demand continues to outstrip supply.

Brent Mayo joins as Managing Director and Nicholas Beatty as Principal, both reporting to Ganesh Sundaram, DigitalBridge's Chief Investment Officer of Infrastructure. The hires come as the firm manages over $90 billion in assets under management across its digital infrastructure platforms, including DataBank, Vantage Data Centers, and Zayo Group.

Mayo brings 15 years of infrastructure investing experience, most recently as a Managing Director at Brookfield's Infrastructure Group, where he led investments in digital infrastructure, energy transition, and transport sectors. Before Brookfield, he spent time at Macquarie Capital and started his career at UBS Investment Bank.

Beatty, meanwhile, joins from the same Brookfield team, where he focused on digital infrastructure and utilities investments. Prior to Brookfield, he worked at Morgan Stanley's investment banking division. Both executives are based in New York and will focus on origination, execution, and portfolio management across DigitalBridge's infrastructure strategies.

The appointments arrive at an inflection point for digital infrastructure. Demand for data center capacity has surged over the past 18 months, driven primarily by generative AI workloads that require exponentially more compute power than traditional cloud applications. Hyperscalers like Microsoft, Amazon, and Google have collectively committed over $200 billion in data center capex for 2026 alone, according to recent earnings disclosures.

That's created a land grab. Not just for rack space, but for power — the real bottleneck in data center development. Sites with access to reliable, low-cost electricity are trading at premiums that would've seemed absurd three years ago. DigitalBridge has been among the most aggressive buyers, with portfolio companies securing power allocations in key markets from Northern Virginia to Dallas to Phoenix.

"The convergence of AI, cloud adoption, and 5G deployment is driving unprecedented demand for digital infrastructure," Sundaram said in the company's announcement. "Brent and Nicholas bring the investment acumen and execution experience needed to capitalize on these trends."

Translation: DigitalBridge sees more deals to do, and it needs people who can move fast. Hiring senior talent from Brookfield — one of the few firms with comparable scale and deployment pace in infrastructure — suggests the firm is preparing for a significant wave of capital deployment over the next 12-24 months.

Brookfield has long been the 800-pound gorilla in infrastructure investing, with over $500 billion in assets under management across real estate, infrastructure, renewable power, and private equity. Its infrastructure group — where both Mayo and Beatty worked — is known for large-scale, complex deals: ports, toll roads, utilities, and increasingly, digital assets.

But Brookfield's breadth is also a constraint. The firm invests across dozens of subsectors, which means even senior professionals spend time on a wide variety of deal types. DigitalBridge, by contrast, is monoline: digital infrastructure only. That specialization lets it move faster on sector-specific opportunities and build deeper operating expertise within portfolio companies.

For Mayo and Beatty, the move likely offers a chance to go deeper on digital deals without splitting time across energy, transport, and other infrastructure verticals. For DigitalBridge, it's an infusion of institutional deal discipline from a firm that's consistently won competitive auctions for billion-dollar-plus assets.

Both will report directly to Sundaram, who joined DigitalBridge in 2021 from Colony Capital (DigitalBridge's predecessor entity) and has been instrumental in repositioning the firm as a pure-play digital infrastructure investor. Sundaram himself came up through the ranks at Macquarie and Morgan Stanley before joining Colony, making him well-positioned to integrate talent from similar backgrounds.

According to the announcement, Mayo and Beatty will focus on "origination, execution, and portfolio management." In practice, that means three things: finding deals, closing deals, and making sure the deals perform post-close. For a firm like DigitalBridge, with multiple large platform companies already in the portfolio, the third part is just as important as the first two.

DigitalBridge's $90 billion AUM is spread across a handful of core platforms, each operating at significant scale. Vantage Data Centers, one of the firm's flagship holdings, operates hyperscale campuses across North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific. DataBank focuses on edge data centers in secondary and tertiary markets — the kind of distributed infrastructure needed for latency-sensitive applications like autonomous vehicles and real-time analytics.

Then there's Zayo Group, the fiber and bandwidth infrastructure company DigitalBridge and EQT acquired in 2020 for $14.3 billion in one of the largest infrastructure take-privates of that year. Zayo owns over 130,000 route miles of fiber across North America and Europe — the physical pipes that connect data centers, cell towers, and enterprise customers.

Each of these platforms is capital-intensive and growth-focused. Vantage alone has announced over $10 billion in development projects over the past two years. DataBank has been on an acquisition tear, buying up regional colocation providers to expand its edge footprint. Zayo has been densifying its fiber routes in AI-heavy markets where hyperscalers are lighting up new campuses.

All of that requires not just capital, but operational oversight. Mayo and Beatty will likely spend significant time working with portfolio company management teams on everything from site selection to power procurement to customer contract negotiations. It's the unglamorous middle work of infrastructure investing that doesn't show up in press releases but determines whether returns hit target.

DigitalBridge has also been active on the fundraising side. The firm closed its Digital Bridge Partners II fund at $8.7 billion in 2022 and has been deploying that capital rapidly. Industry sources suggest the firm is in early stages of fundraising for a third flagship fund, though DigitalBridge hasn't confirmed timing or target size publicly.

Here's the thing nobody wants to say out loud: building new data center capacity in prime markets has become nearly impossible in the near term. Not because of capital constraints or demand uncertainty, but because of power. Utilities in Northern Virginia, Dublin, Amsterdam, Singapore, and other key hubs are either at capacity or have multi-year waitlists for new service connections.

That's rewriting the deal landscape. Investors are now buying assets based on power allocations as much as physical infrastructure. Sites with secured power capacity trade at premiums of 20-30% over similar facilities without locked-in electricity access. Some buyers are even acquiring older, inefficient data centers purely for the power entitlement, planning to redevelop or retrofit once they control the utility hookup.

Talent poaching is a two-way street. Brookfield losing two senior digital infrastructure investors to DigitalBridge is notable — not because Brookfield can't backfill the roles, but because it suggests DigitalBridge is winning the narrative battle among investment professionals about where the alpha is in infrastructure.

Brookfield's infrastructure group has made big bets on digital assets, including its acquisition of a majority stake in data center operator CyrusOne (later combined with another portfolio company) and its ongoing investments in fiber and cell tower assets globally. But the firm still competes for talent with its own private equity, real estate, and renewable power divisions.

DigitalBridge, meanwhile, has no such internal competition. If you want to work on digital infrastructure deals — and only digital infrastructure deals — it's one of the purest platforms in the market. That focus is increasingly attractive to investors who see digital as the highest-growth, highest-conviction subsector within infrastructure.

There's also the upside equation. Brookfield is a $500 billion institution where even successful deals move the needle incrementally. DigitalBridge, at $90 billion AUM and growing fast, still has room for individual investments and team contributions to materially impact firm-level performance. That matters when you're negotiating comp packages and evaluating where to spend the next five years of your career.

DigitalBridge isn't alone in building out its team. Blackstone, KKR, and Brookfield itself have all expanded their digital infrastructure teams over the past 18 months. Blackstone, for example, has been aggressively hiring for its data center platform QTS (acquired in 2021) and continues to add investment professionals focused on digital deals.

What's different about DigitalBridge is the specialization. Most of its competitors run digital infrastructure as one strategy within a broader portfolio. DigitalBridge has staked its entire identity on this subsector. That creates clarity — and risk. If digital infrastructure underperforms or faces a prolonged downturn, there's no diversification cushion. But if the thesis plays out, the firm is positioned to capture disproportionate upside.

To understand why DigitalBridge is hiring now, look at what the firm has been doing over the past 12 months. In late 2025, Vantage Data Centers announced a joint venture with a sovereign wealth fund to develop $3 billion in hyperscale capacity across three continents. DataBank completed six acquisitions in 2025, adding over 40 facilities to its edge platform. Zayo secured $2 billion in financing to accelerate fiber densification in AI-heavy metros.

Those aren't maintenance capex numbers. Those are growth-stage, land-grab numbers. And they require teams capable of underwriting, negotiating, and executing transactions at speed while maintaining operational discipline post-close.

DigitalBridge has also been an active seller. The firm exited its investment in Vertical Bridge, a cell tower operator, in 2023 for a reported 2.8x multiple on invested capital. It sold a minority stake in DataBank to a Canadian pension fund in 2024, providing liquidity while retaining control. Those exits generate capital that needs redeployment — another reason to staff up the investment team now.

The table above is simplified, but it illustrates the deployment pace. DigitalBridge's platforms are collectively committing $5-7 billion in capital annually right now — a pace that requires not just senior investment professionals, but operators who can work alongside management teams to execute on aggressive growth plans.

For Mayo and Beatty, this means they're walking into live deal flow from day one. No ramp period, no exploratory phase. The firm has deals in diligence, pipeline opportunities being underwritten, and portfolio companies needing strategic support. That's appealing if you want to hit the ground running. It's also exhausting if you were hoping for a gentler landing.

First: Is DigitalBridge preparing to go public again? The firm went public via SPAC in 2021, then took itself private again in 2023 after shares underperformed. Since then, it's been operating as a traditional private equity firm with a publicly traded feeder vehicle. Adding senior talent from blue-chip institutions like Brookfield could be a signal that the firm is positioning for another liquidity event — either a full IPO, a strategic sale of one of its platforms, or a major capital raise that requires demonstrating institutional depth.

Second: How much of this hiring spree is offense versus defense? DigitalBridge has been successful, but it's also operating in an increasingly competitive market. Blackstone, KKR, Brookfield, EQT, and a dozen other mega-funds are all chasing the same hyperscale data center and fiber deals. Hiring experienced investors from competitors is one way to stay ahead — or at least keep pace — in a market where speed and relationships matter as much as capital.

Third: What does this say about Brookfield's retention challenges? Losing two senior professionals from the same team in close proximity isn't typical. It raises questions about comp structures, promotion timelines, or internal culture dynamics at Brookfield's infrastructure group. That's speculation, but worth watching — especially if more defections follow.

For now, though, the story is straightforward. DigitalBridge has capital to deploy, platforms that need it, and a market that's giving it plenty of places to put money to work. Mayo and Beatty are tools for that deployment. Whether they're the right tools depends on how the next 18 months of deal activity plays out.

Step back, and this hire is a data point in a larger trend: infrastructure investing is professionalizing fast, and the war for talent is intensifying. A decade ago, infrastructure was a niche corner of private markets, often staffed by former investment bankers looking for a slower pace. Today, it's one of the fastest-growing segments of alternative assets, with firms competing directly with private equity and venture capital for top talent.

The reason is simple. Infrastructure deals have gotten bigger, more complex, and more lucrative. Data center transactions routinely top $1 billion. Fiber network carve-outs involve multi-continent asset footprints and regulatory approvals in a dozen jurisdictions. Renewable power projects require expertise in tax equity, offtake agreements, and grid interconnection timelines.

That complexity demands specialized talent — people who understand not just finance, but engineering, regulation, and operations. Firms that can attract and retain that talent have a structural advantage. Firms that can't will find themselves outbid, outmaneuvered, or stuck with underperforming assets they don't know how to fix.

DigitalBridge's bet is that focus wins. By going all-in on digital infrastructure and building a team of specialists rather than generalists, the firm is trying to create a talent moat that's hard for diversified competitors to replicate. Whether that bet pays off depends on execution — but hiring Mayo and Beatty is a clear signal the firm is doubling down.