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Naaldwijk, The Netherlands – Worldstream, a fast-growing global Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) provider with more than 15,000 dedicated servers installed in its company-owned data centers in Naaldwijk, the Netherlands, has hired Ivo Roomer (47) as the company’s new Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Mr. Roomer has many years of leadership experience in this industry, including at Eurofiber Group, Leaseweb and Easynet. He succeeds Lennert Vollebregt (33), one of the founders of Worldstream, effective as of September 1, 2020. Mr. Vollebregt will remain closely involved as a shareholder and will be serving on the new Advisory Board to be set up.

Over the past 17 years, Ivo Roomer has worked as a manager and board member in various management positions in the field of Sales, Customer Services and Merger & Acquisition. He worked at Leaseweb, Eurofiber Group, Easynet (acquired by Interoute in 2015), VNU Media and energy company E.ON, among other companies. Most recently, Mr. Roomer was responsible for Customer Services within the management team of connectivity provider Eurofiber. Eurofiber Group is a provider of telecommunications and network infrastructure services in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany.

Ivo Roomer is hired as the new CEO of Worldstream to drive the next stage of growth. It opens a new chapter for the company founded in 2006 by Lennert Vollebregt and Dirk Vromans (CTO). The strategy will be focused on further international expansion – on the growth in personnel numbers and addition of foreign branches, and the implementation of mechanisms to safeguard customer and personnel satisfaction during the company’s international growth path.

Worldstream strengthened its management team in 2019 with six board members from their own ranks and hired their CFO from EY. Worldstream founder Lennert Vollebregt now believes the time is right to appoint a seasoned board member as Worldstream’s new CEO, someone with extensive corporate experience.

“In recent years, we have been able to build a solid personnel base and a corporate culture that radiates positivity, something that is reflected in the highly professional IaaS services and data center infrastructure we deliver to customers globally,” says Lennert Vollebregt. “We are pleased that Ivo Roomer will be joining us. He is a highly experienced management professional with broad enterprise experience in our industry, but also a real people manager who is capable of preserving our positivity-driven culture and encouraging the entrepreneurial intrinsic motivation of our employees. As a management team, we therefore believe that he is the right person to lead our fast-growing organization and manage the further expansion of Worldstream in the Netherlands and globally in a professional manner.”

90.000 Dedicated Servers, M&A

Worldstream intends to expand the current number of dedicated servers for customers in its data centers from 15.000 to 90.000 servers in the next few years. Worldstream already has concrete plans to significantly expand the data center capacity in Naaldwijk, the Netherlands, and thus prepare the capacity for this server growth. The company’s portfolio of IaaS services will also be broadened, including the addition of software-defined functionality through which clients can flexibly set up their IT infrastructures on regional and global scales. Next to that Worldstream has plans to roll out data center capacity and offices elsewhere in the world, in Europe and the United States.

As a manager, Ivo Roomer is used to working in organizations with international operations, also outside the Netherlands. From 2010 to 2012, for example, he worked for IaaS provider Leaseweb in Frankfurt. His responsibility back then was to lead the integration and day-to-day operations of Netdirekt, an industry peer which Leaseweb had acquired.

“Organizations with minimal growth, that’s not where I can make a difference,” says Ivo Roomer, Worldstream’s new CEO. “A company with high-dynamic growth, that’s what I find challenging and most enjoyable to work with. That’s my habitat. By now I have a lot of experience within the data center, IaaS and telecom industry. These markets by definition often show high-dynamic growth.”

“I see a lot of potential for organic growth of the Worldstream organization, but also, for example, for M&A activities, for acquisitions in the industry,” says Roomer. “Fortunately, I am surrounded by a strong management team, with tremendously driven professionals who take their responsibilities and continuously challenge and refine themselves and each other. It’s also a flat organization with little or no hierarchy. That suits me well. I am not a directive leader.”

Ivo Roomer holds a Master of Science in Business Administration from the Erasmus University in Rotterdam. He also studied for six months in the United States. During his career he further completed several master classes and courses in management at Erasmus University, as well as an M&A and Corporate Strategy program for general managers at INSEAD.

Advisory Board, Lennert Vollebregt

Taking seat in Worldstream’s Advisory Board to be set up, Lennert Vollebregt will continue to be closely involved in the management strategy of the company and quality assurance by sharing his knowledge and leveraging his many years of entrepreneurial experience. It is expected that the Worldstream Advisory Board will be further expanded at a later date.

“As an entrepreneur, I will also be focusing on company shareholdings and supervisory positions in other technology companies, to help them grow as well,” says Vollebregt. “You may think of companies with similar dynamics of technology combined with rapid growth. I am further interested in real estate project development, especially residential real estate, which is also something I’ll be engaged with in the period ahead.”

About WorldStream
Founded in 2006, WorldStream is headquartered in Naaldwijk, the Netherlands. With currently more than 15,000 dedicated servers installed in its data centers, WorldStream is a security-focused Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) hosting provider delivering highly customizable dedicated servers as well as colocation services and denial-of-service (DDoS) mitigation to customers worldwide. Its customer base includes cloud service providers (CSPs), managed service providers (MSPs), systems integrators (SIs), broadcasters, Internet service providers (ISPs), independent software vendors (ISVs), SMBs and enterprise companies. WorldStream owns a global network with a total capacity of currently 10Tbit/s, with a maximum network utilization of 50 percent to provide customers with high-scalability options and the ability to easily mitigate the impact of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. WorldStream servers are housed in data centers of WorldStream’s sister company Greenhouse Datacenters, who operates two highly energy-efficient data centers in Naaldwijk, the Netherlands.