Lanham Napier is President and CEO of Rackspace and an unbridled enthusiast for creating the service culture that drives Rackspace’s “fanatical support” philosophy.
Napier joined Rackspace in April 2000, and recognized early on that the company’s unique service culture and its employees—dubbed Rackers—were core to Rackspace’s success. He began championing efforts to build the company’s world-class customer service model that today is known as Fanatical Support®. Napier’s commitment to providing Rackers with the same Fanatical Support provided to its customers has made Rackspace a globally-recognized winning workplace and one of “the best places to work,” including its FORTUNE® rankings as one the 100 Best Companies to Work For.
Napier has played a critical role not only in Rackspace’s survival during the tech industry meltdown of 2000, but also in the company’s continued growth. Under his leadership, Rackspace has grown from a privately held company with fewer than 100 Rackers to the service leader in cloud computing. Napier has been 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 also been honored by Ernst & Young as an entrepreneur of the year and is a member of the Young President’s Organization and Entrepreneur’s Organization.
Napier has a bachelor’s degree in Economics from Rice University and graduated with an MBA from Harvard Business School.
