LOS ANGELES—Newmark Knight Frank has named Miles Loo Jr. as head of its valuation & advisory data center solutions group. A valuation veteran who shifted his focus from class A office and retail to data centers over the past 12 years, Loo will be based in NKF's Los Angeles office as an EVP.

Loo comes to NKF from Cushman & Wakefield, where he founded the Mission Critical Facilities specialty practice. The 22-year C&W veteran saw early on that what is now known as the Internet of Things would make a considerable impact on government, business and society, and therefore commercial real estate.

“Miles was keen to recognize the tremendous shift in how data centers have been utilized early in his career,” says John Busi, president of valuation & advisory at NKF. “As one of the industry's leading authorities on data centers, Miles' contribution to NKF will transcend geographic and service-line borders, and will elevate the firm's position in this incredibly important asset sector.”

Loo's experience includes advising private equity funds, institutional investors, large pension funds, major Fortune 500 companies, cloud companies and global IT conglomerates on investing across the data center sector. Comprising more than 50.5 million rentable square feet, these centers include mission-critical, disaster recovery centers, data colocation facilities, carrier hotels, internet getaways and life sciences properties around the world.