Responsible for infrastructure strategy, market and site due diligence, land acquisition & entitlement, customer, community, public official and utility engagement, to support hyperscale, colocation, and enterprise data center development in markets throughout North America.

Mike Grella, founder of Grella Partnership Strategies (GPS), has 30 years of economic development, site selection, tax, legal, and government affairs experience representing hundreds of companies, including many of the world’s most recognizable brands, supporting over $10 billion of capital investment & real estate development transactions. GPS is an infrastructure development, economic development & public advisory firm delivering value to public & private sector organizations & investment funds leveraging cutting-edge data analytics and deep connections in the logistics/e- commerce, data center, and cleantech / sustainable manufacturing industries. For EDO and utility clients, GPS conducts visionary strategic plans focused on smart city technologies, community health & wellness, resilience, diversity/equity/inclusion, sustainability, public infrastructure development, entrepreneurship, innovation, reimagining retail development, and attracting quality job creation projects. GPS also performs social/digital/traditional media campaigns, market studies, highest & best use assessments, mock site selection RFPs to prepare communities with the precise data and tools necessary to optimize investment attraction and make curated introductions to desirable end-users & developers. We also connect communities and organizations with industrial developers, site selectors, brokers, and corporate end users responsible for business expansion and site location decisions with all facets of economic development transactions & partnerships.

Visionary leader of Amazon Web Services economic development policy and strategy; negotiate and oversee execution of transactions for existing and future data center regions working with government leaders to improve delivery of AWS services to customers. Removing barriers to region entry and expansion by building bridges with countries, regions and communities. Working on the tip of the spear inventing, iterating, learning solving complex problems related to deploying hyperscale cloud infrastructure and solutions around the globe. The Economic Development Team takes a leading role in community, economic, and workforce development issues, establishing trust and mutually beneficial public private partnerships, supporting energy procurement and renewable energy production, addressing tariffs/VAT/other taxes, network connectivity, talent pipeline, permitting and government approvals, public infrastructure development in addition to other matters relevant to identifying, selecting, and securing future sites for growth and expansion that will further Amazon's mission to be Earth's most customer centric company. In my travels I'm privileged to meet so many fascinating, smart, innovative and caring people. Whether I'm in Mumbai, Montreal, Oregon, Ohio, Seattle, Seoul or places in between, the desire for people to be connected to technology that will better their lives, increase opportunities and grow economies is universal.It's an exhilarating to observe the impact of AWS infrastructure and cloud services on government agencies, utilities, MSMEs, educational, research and other non-profit institutions, and individual customers. AWS helps incubate and grow businesses and economies, reduce barriers to entry in fields that historically required large IT CapEx, supports the creation of direct and indirect jobs, and improves the quality and cost effectiveness of government services provided to citizens.

Founder of Amazon's Global Economic Development Team. The Director of Economic Development role was created within Amazon's Legal Public Policy Department in March 2012 to raise the bar in government negotiations, earn trust and develop lasting relationships with public officials and partners. As Amazon ramped up expansion of its physical footprint globally to provide better price, selection and convenience to customers the need arose for consistency in messaging and direct line of communication to public sector executives about Amazon's expansion projects, quality of job creation, economic and fiscal impacts and the Company's commitment to corporate and social responsibility. Building and leading a bar raising economic development team provided limitless opportunities to invent, simplify and align our team's work with customer focused objectives, leadership principles, long-term thinking, and sustainable government partnerships. The team negotiates expansion transactions for new fulfillment centers, corporate offices, R&D facilities, logistics facilities and data centers, representing tens of millions of square feet of expansion, billions of dollars of capital investment, and hundreds of thousands of new full-time jobs. It also built a best in class compliance and implementation program that supports FP&A, accounting, tax, legal and other functions.The best way to judge one's performance and contributions is to speak with your customers. I've had the privilege to work with hundreds of government leaders building lasting professional relationships and friendships. To listen to an interview or a podcast, read an article, a blog or speak with a government leader at a grand opening or community event about the impact Amazon has had on their state, city, community, how we focus on our customers, our employees, neighbors, is humbling and drives us all to continually raise the bar on everything we do.Talent, team and trust are the seeds that grow success.