Rackspace Appoints New CEO

Joe Eazor has been named Rackspace’s new CEO and will be responsible for the company’s global strategy and operations spanning the United States and three other continents.

Rackspace president Jeff Cotten has served as interim CEO since the company’s previous chief executive, Taylor Rhodes, departed earlier this month. Eazor will begin serving as CEO on June 12.

“As soon as the call came about Rackspace, I knew that was where I wanted to go,” Eazor said. “I know the company. I’ve visited the headquarters and felt the spirit there, and watched Rackers at work. I admire Rackspace’s well-earned reputation for expertise and Fanatical Support — and for a workplace culture that makes that great support possible. I’m excited by the huge market opportunity that Rackspace has, as companies move out of their corporate data centers and into multiple clouds.”

Eazor was most recently CEO of EarthLink and led the sale of the company to Windstream. The $1.1 billion acquisition closed in late February.

Before leading EarthLink, Eazor served as a top executive at EMC, HP and EDS. After HP’s acquisition of EDS, he was responsible for integrating that $22 billion business into its new parent.{ad}

Prior to the acquisition by HP, he led EDS’s Asia Pacific business and offshoring operations while living in Shanghai, China. Earlier in his career, he gained experience working with private equity investors as CEO of an internet portal services startup called Springbow Solutions. He currently serves on the boards of Commvault Systems and Discover Financial Services.

“Joe has had a long and successful career growing IT services businesses,” said David Sambur, senior partner at Apollo Global Management and chairman of the Rackspace board of directors. “He has a proven reputation for driving investment and allocation of resources to the areas that will generate the best returns.”