Leading from the front in the internet war with the ‘baddies’

WHAT does the internet look like?

Well, there are several taxi drivers in Leeds who will be able to give you a definitive answer. Whenever a curious cab driver asks what goes on inside Host Europe Group’s operation in Leeds, Matt Mansell is delighted to tell them: “That is the internet. You’re looking at it.”

Not only does Host Europe Group – or HEG for short – deliver the “good stuff” online, it also thwarts the baddies who want to send viruses that could cripple global computer systems.

There would be much pounding of keyboards and grinding of teeth if HEG didn’t exist. Forty four staff are employed by HEG in Leeds, and this number is expected to rise. HEG has so much faith in its Leeds operation that it has just invested £4.2m on a new centre, which builds on the success of its existing base on the site. It is part of a group which helps HEG to manage more than six million internet domains.

HEG, which is owned by private equity firm Cinven, is Europe’s largest privately owned hosting group. When I met Mr Mansell, the firm’s group MD, he was proudly showing off the new site to Lord Birt, the former BBC Director General, who had recently been appointed as HEG’s non-executive chairman.

“Just yesterday alone, we delivered 30 million email messages through this facility. In doing so, we stopped 130,000 viruses going into inboxes,” Mr Mansell observed.

“From this building alone, yesterday we serviced 70 million hits to websites.”

The Leeds data centre is one of the most innovative and efficient facilities in Europe, Mr Mansell said. The local climate, which can hardly be described as tropical, is also just right for this type of centre. If it was much warmer, it wouldn’t function as efficiently, and fewer jobs would be created here. Ponder that fact the next time you curse the Leeds drizzle. But HEG can’t afford to become complacent.

“It’s not everyone who can say we quite literally run a part of the internet, but we really do. We’re very proud that we keep it on around the clock,” said Mr Mansell. “Investing in our capacity further is critical to internet infrastructure. People think that the internet just works. Well, it doesn’t just work, there is a substantial infrastructure behind it.

“The first step your web browser takes when you go on the internet, goes to a sorting office, much like the Royal Mail when you’re delivering a letter.

“That’s called the domain name system (DNS). We run the core of that DNS. This is our primary location. We are the largest dot.uk registrar. More traffic comes through here than anywhere else.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the local council is keen to see HEG flourish.

Mr Mansell said: “We have approval here from the local authority to go into two more phases. Our spending on this facility has been based on expanding even further.

“Right now, we have 4,000 servers running in this facility. With our new DC (data centre) we have capacity for another 5,000. We have all the infrastructure on the outside space to allow us to build phase two, with an economy of scale for a further 5,000 server capacity.”

But why is the business based in Leeds, and not, say, Manchester or Birmingham?

“Some of it is down to the site’s heritage,’’ Mr Mansell said. “We acquired a business back in 2003 that had a site here. There’s a good talent pool of technical staff in Leeds and the immediate area.

“So we are a prime employer in the area for people who are technically literate and want to come and help us run the internet.

“Clearly, we have fantastic universities in Leeds. We have a highly skilled workforce, many of whom join us as graduates and go on training programmes with us.”

Mr Mansell was an “early adopter” of the internet, He went to study computing and informatics at Plymouth University before the heady days of the dotcom boom and bust.

“I took a year out to raise more funds to return, and started an accidental career that made returning fruitless,’’ he recalled. “I’ve since been back, but as an invited guest speaker.”

Before joining HEG, Mr Mansell was the CEO and founder of Mesh Digital. He sold Mesh to HEG in May 2012. Mesh operated a wholesale domain system known as Domainbox.com, which now underpins the group’s domain infrastructure across Europe.

Mr Mansell has also worked for Quark and Adobe, who were real internet pioneers, but feels he’s found his natural home at HEG, not least because it gives him the chance to work with the likes of Lord Birt. Although he had his critics, there is no doubt that Lord Birt played a major role in equipping the BBC for the digital age. The success of the BBC’s website is largely down to Lord Birt and the team he gathered around him in the 1990s.

“He’s fantastic,’’ said Mr Mansell. “When you’ve been around the block in the internet world, it’s hard to come across people you can draw experiences from. What I really enjoy is that, every day, when I’m working with Lord Birt, I’m still learning. He definitely is a technology-aware individual.”

Lord Birt has helped big organisations to stay focused on customer service during times of change.

Mr Mansell said: “We were acquired by Cinven for £458m last year, we have since done two further acquisitions at (a value of) £200m between them. So we are a business of some scale. The business needs to constantly evolve and constantly change. Lord Birt’s experience of dealing with those circumstances is very helpful.

“The internet grew at great pace, and there’s a point where that pace gets to a sizeable business. You need good practices and strong business acumen, and he definitely brings that.”