Updated 3:00 p.m.
Rackspace CEO Taylor Rhodes announced Wednesday on the company's blog that he's leaving the San Antonio cloud company.
Rhodes says he has been proud to lead the company since 2014. Under his leadership the company was sold to a private equity firm, pivoted to become a managed-cloud company, and in March announced layoffs of 6 percent of the company's workforce.
Rackspace was sold to Apollo Global Management in a $4.3 billion deal in August, and officially went private in November.
From wild stock price swings to pivoting on the type of business they were, to going private, TechBloc CEO David Heard says Rhodes' tenure was marked by big transitions.
"He's had to really manage a lot of change in a short period of time. It's not an easy thing to do. Again, from all reports in terms of morale at Rackspace and their financial records, it looks like he's done an incredibly good job," says Heard.
Now private, Rackspace's financials are not open to the public, but the company released some bullet points today saying they were growing in profits across the board.
When Apollo bought Rackspace last year there were concerns about wholesale changes at the company, speculation Apollo diminished by keeping the executive team in tact at Rackspace. With the departure one of the biggest name on the marquee, employees might get spooked, but Heard says he thinks that is unwarranted.
"I think that Apollo's making good on their commitment to what they said when they acquired Rackspace because the interim leadership is coming from inside the company," says Heard.
In the interim, Rhodes will be replaced by Rackspace President Jeff Cotten, who both Rhodes and the Rackspace board of directors say is a strong candidate for the CEO position.
Rhodes' final day is May 16. Rackspace says the decision to leave was his alone. He worked for the company for a decade.
Rhodes says he will become CEO of an undisclosed company that he describes as smaller and in another city.
