Joe DownsCEO & Co-Founder, Belrose Storage Group. Founder, Storage Moguls.

From IBM to Self Storage: A Tech Guy's Journey

3 Aug 2026 · 1 min

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A former IBM executive who spent nearly 30 years in Latin America shifted to self-storage three years ago. He moved to the US a decade back for a global role, but wanted to own something himself. He chose self-storage as the most compelling real-estate asset class to pursue next.

Chapters

So we are tech guys. So from college, I joined IBM Corporation in Brazil, which is a big company there as well, until today. And I— very boring story. So I stayed there for almost 30 years, right? So from Brazil, Latin America, and I came to the United States 10 years ago, invited by IBM to work as part of the global organization of IBM. So I was in an executive position. I met people from around the globe, traveled around. So it was nice, great story. So I'm proud of that. But 3 years ago, I started looking for something more that I could call my businesses to do, right? So I found self-storage as the most interesting asset class in real estate. And I said, hey, this is what I would like to do going forward.