Rackspace appoints Taylor Rhodes as its first-ever Chief Customer Officer

Rackspace® Hosting has appointed Taylor Rhodes as its first-ever Chief Customer Officer (CCO), leading the firm's Enterprise, SMB and International divisions. As CCO, Rhodes will lead Rackspace’s Sales and Fanatical Support organisations globally.

Formerly Senior Vice President and Managing Director of Rackspace International, Rhodes’s mission as CCO is to bring the power of Rackspace’s Hybrid Cloud portfolio, backed by Fanatical Support®, to Rackspace’s global markets. One of his highest priorities is to evolve Fanatical Support into an even higher value model for our customers, enabling Rackspace to advance its position as the service leader in the industry.

“We are experiencing a generational shift in IT toward hybrid cloud architectures, a shift that is enabling technology to move from a being a cost center to being a powerhouse of business innovation,” Rhodes said. “The power of Rackspace’s hybrid cloud portfolio enables our customers to choose the right combination of price and performance for any given workload, and the power of Fanatical Support lets them maximise the value of the people they employ to develop innovative new applications.”

Rhodes will move from London to the Rackspace US office in San Antonio, Texas, to take up his new role. Rackspace’s Vice President of Enterprise Sales, Jeff Cotten, will move from Texas to Zurich to assume the Managing Director, International role.

“Taylor has expanded Rackspace's International business across the UK, Europe and the Asia Pacific regions achieving impressive results in just two and a half years. Now as our CCO, I know he will bring his first-hand knowledge of how Fanatical Support works in the new Hybrid Cloud world and an understanding of our market and customers,” said Rackspace CEO Lanham Napier. “In this new management mix, our International business will benefit from Jeff Cotten's experience building our Fortune 1000 sales and support enablement functions in the US. He has helped customers realise the value of working with Rackspace to transform their traditional IT models to hybrid cloud models. We are excited to welcome him to the International team.”

Since joining Rackspace in 2008, Cotten has served as a leader in the company’s sales and support organisation, and played a central role in building its Enterprise sales and sales enablement functions in the US. Formerly with EDS (now HP), Cotten has a depth of expertise serving large customers in the IT services market.

“This is an incredibly exciting time to join the Rackspace International team. Hybrid cloud is a global movement, and Fanatical Support is creating growth opportunities for us in exciting new markets,” said Cotten. “Rackspace is poised to build on our Hybrid Cloud leadership position to expand in Asia Pacific and EMEA. The future looks bright and I look forward to leading the International team.”