Rhodes Leaving Rackspace, Cotten Named Interim CEO
    Rackspace CEO Taylor Rhodes is leaving the company on May 16  to become CEO of an unnamed smaller company, and President Jeff Cotten is  stepping up as interim CEO while the board of directors seeks a long-term  replacement to lead the privately held San Antonio, Texas-based hosting giant.
Calling it a tough decision in a blog post  Wednesday, Rhodes said, "I'm going to become the CEO of a smaller private  company. It's based in another city. It does not compete with Rackspace. I'll  be able to talk more specifically about it in a couple of weeks, but for now  let me just say that it's about the size Rackspace was when I started here 10  years ago -- and it's growing about as rapidly. It's using cloud technologies to  disrupt what has been a very low-tech industry. The company is going through  growing pains and needs a CEO who has been through those challenges before." 
According to Rhodes, the board considers Cotten a strong  candidate for the permanent CEO job.
Cotten was promoted to president on Feb. 1, after eight  years at Rackspace that included three years running Rackspace's international  business and most recently running Rackspace's fast-growing Fanatical Support for Amazon Web Services (AWS) business. The AWS program is  patterned after a similar Fanatical Support for Microsoft Azure program that is  a slightly bigger operation for Rackspace, which is also an indirect provider  in the Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program and a five-time  Microsoft Partner of the Year Award winner.
Cotten said the company, which went private in a $4.3  billion deal that closed in November, will not "take any kind of timeout"  during his interim CEO tenure.
"We're going to keep driving to expand Rackspace's  leadership of the fast-growing market for managed cloud services," Cotten wrote in a  blog post.
 
	Posted by Scott Bekker on May 04, 2017