3 CTOs Weigh in on 2020
Ask three CTOs for 2020 predictions and you’ll get three very different perspectives.
Ask three CTOs for 2020 predictions and you’ll get three very different perspectives. We took a look at where three chief Rackspace leaders agree and disagree for a more rounded view on what lies ahead in 2020.
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About the Authors
Americas CTO
Joel Friedman
Joel brings deep experience in information security, product development and IT management to Rackspace. He is responsible for setting the long-term technical strategy, driving technological innovation around the company’s portfolio, and closing the loop between market demand and product engineering. The New Jersey Technology Council has awarded Joel the distinguished title of 2015 CSO of the Year due to his innovation and creativity in planning and deploying enterprise systems, future IT goals, management philosophy and service to the industry and community. He also holds industry certifications with many of the leading groups including ISC, ISACA, PCI SSC, EC Council and the Cloud Security Alliance. Joel writes about cloud, cloud security and modern technology topics.
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Chief Technical Officer, EMEA
Lee James
As Chief Technology Officer for Rackspace EMEA, Lee James is responsible for helping customers bring value to their business through the Rackspace portfolio. Lee’s an avid customer champion and vocal about our EMEA strategy, leading the strategic development of Rackspace EMEA products and services and serving as the executive sponsor for a number of our largest EMEA customers. Lee has more than 20 years of experience leading teams across large-scale, multinational and agile-based environments. He’s been instrumental in developing and implementing DevOps practices, cloud deployments, analytics platforms, edge computing solutions, digital strategy and IT transformation solutions to deliver significant business value to customers. His prior experience includes senior roles across BP, Betfair and GlaxoSmithKline. At Betfair, Lee was responsible for delivering a DevOps-driven platform that performed more transactions than all of the European stock markets combined, each day. At BP, he was recognized for building the company's first multi-cloud platform.
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CTO
Tolga Tarhan
As CTO of Rackspace Technology, Tolga Tarhan leads the vision, driving innovation, and strategy for our technology offerings. With more than two decades of experience leading product and engineering teams and as a hands-on technologist at heart, he brings unique insights to customers undertaking the journey to the cloud. As an early pioneer of cloud native thinking, Tolga's passion has driven our technical approach and transformed our customers into cloud native thinkers. Tolga continues to show thought leadership in the field through his extensive speaking engagements at AWS events, industry conferences, and educational groups. Tolga previously served as CTO of Onica, which was recently acquired by Rackspace Technology. Prior to that, he was a co-founder of Sturdy Networks and served as the CEO through to the acquisition by Onica. Tolga holds an M.B.A. from the Graziadio Business School at Pepperdine University.
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