As a New Jersey native, Gary Wojtaszek may have had some misconceptionsabout the sleepy Midwest. But as the CFO of Cincinnati Bell,Wojtaszek is in the vanguard of change, leading the almost140-year-old local phone company in its bid to become a global datacenter colocation provider for Fortune 1000 customers.

“It's a unique opportunity to join a company that some wouldbelieve had seen its best days, and to come in and set a newstrategic direction and take it to a different spot,” Wojtaszeksays. “It's been a fun couple of years here.”

So far, so good. Cincinnati Bell reported $1.4 billion inrevenue last year and it showed strong growth in sales from datacenter colocation, which totaled $125 million, a 75% increase from2009. In colocation, a company provides customers with space,power, protection and services, while they bring in their serversand other equipment.

It's a bold move for a landlocked telco to attempt to span theglobe with a new business. But Wojtaszek is comfortable withinternational assignments, given that he spent several years living in France and Belgium when heworked for General Motors. He worked for Agere Systems, and beforejoining Cincinnati Bell in 2008 he was chief accounting officer atLaureate Education in Baltimore.

Wojtaszek was hired with the specific task of taking the companyin a new direction, one that would provide more opportunities forgrowth than the stagnant wireline and wireless businesses. NowCincinnati Bell uses the cash from its traditional businesses tosupport the focus on data centers.

Wojtaszek didn't have previous experience with data centers.But when he began to look at Cincinnati Bell's strengths andlines of business, “I realized that data centers offered the mostcompelling opportunity to transform the company,” he says.

“I developed the strategy, explained it to the management teamand the board, and sold them on the opportunity that we could dosomething very unique,” Wojtaszek says. “The data center industryis pretty much in its nascency. It's one of those rareopportunities in life where you can have a fun time building abusiness, but also help define an industry.”

One key aspect of the industry is intense competition.Burgeoning interest among Cincinnati Bell's competitors has spurredthem to buy capacity too. However, Cincinnati Bell already has itsJune 2010 acquisition of CyrusOne under its belt, and ready formore acquisitions, thanks to Wojtaszek's refinancing the company'sdebt. The $526 million purchase of CyrusOne and its Texasoperations brought Cincinnati Bell's total number of facilities to17. In the first quarter of this year, Cincinnati Bell contractedfor its first space in London, a beachhead for a Europeanexpansion.

As for Cincinnati and its environs, they have enchanted hisfamily, says Wojtaszek, and led to trying new things, like claypigeon shooting, a favorite of Cincinnati Bell CEO Jack Cassidy.It's “like golf with a gun,” Wojtaszek says.

See Treasury & Risk's complete 2011 list of the100 Most Influential People in Finance here.