Lanham Napier 01/07/2011
President and CEO, Rackspace
Lanham Napier, President and CEO of Rackspace, is a rare combination: Ivy League-educated executive and unbridled enthusiast for creating the service culture that drives Rackspace’s “fanatical support” philosophy.
A Houston native and the son of educators, his interest in learning and advancing his education began at an early age. He earned a bachelors degree in Economics from Rice University and graduated with an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Even as he began his professional career as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch, his entrepreneurial spirit, love of learning, and keen interest in what makes businesses “tick” continued. In his spare time, he would cold-call top executives in the Houston area to learn first-hand about how they built their companies and became successful. “A priceless education . . .I was able to learn from the masters,” says Napier. Prior to joining Rackspace, he also served as a director at Silver Brands Partners, a San Antonio investment firm.
Napier joined Rackspace in April 2000, just a few short months before the technology industry hit rock bottom during the 2000 downturn. He played an important leadership role, keeping Rackspace steady and setting it on its current growth and profit trajectory. During his time at Rackspace, Napier has served as its CFO, President and now CEO.
Early in his tenure with Rackspace, Napier recognized that the company’s unique service culture and its employees — dubbed Rackers — are core to Rackspace’s success. He began championing efforts to build a world-class customer service model that today is known as Fanatical Support®. Also, Napier’s commitment to providing Rackers with the same high level of service and support provided to its customers has made Rackspace a globally-recognized winning workplace and one of “the best places to work,” including this year’s FORTUNE ranking of the 100 Best Companies to Work For.
Under Napier’s leadership, Rackspace has grown from a privately-held company with fewer than 100 employees to the world’s leading specialist in the hosting and cloud computing industry. Today Rackspace (RAX) is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange and has more THAN 3,000 Rackers providing Fanatical Support® to more than 100,000 customers in 120 countries. Napier was recently recognized by Forbes as one of America’s 15 Most Powerful CEOs 40 And Under, and was named one of the Top 100 Most Influential Executives by Everything Channel’s CRN. Napier has been recognized by Ernst & Young as an entrepreneur of the year and is a member of the Young President’s Organization.
Title: Lanham Napier
Date: 2011-12-31
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