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Rackspace appoints new board members

Rackspace has appointed Jeff Benjamin, Tim Campos, Dhiren Fonseca, and Mitch Garber as members of its board of directors.

Jeffrey Benjamin brings 25 years of investment banking, investment management and board experience to the Rackspace board. He has been a senior advisor to Cyrus Capital Partners since June 2008, and also serves as a consultant to Apollo Management. Mr. Benjamin serves on the boards of American Airlines Group and Chemtura, and is chairman of the board of A-Mark Precious Metals. He holds a Masters of Science in Management from the Sloan School of Management at MIT, and a B.A. from Tufts University.

Tim Campos was one of the early executives at Facebook and served until last year as CIO. He recently started a new venture Pulsra. Mr. Campos sits on the board of directors for Viavi as well as at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley. He is also a board member for YearUp.

Dhiren Fonseca is a partner with Certares. Most recently he served as chief commercial officer for Expedia from 2012 through April 2014. Prior to that, he was Expedia’s co-president, Partner Services Group, from 2009 through 2012. Prior to Expedia, Mr. Fonseca was a longtime Microsoft employee, and a member of the management team responsible for creating Expedia in 1995. Mr. Fonseca currently serves on the boards of directors for Alaska Air Group and RentPath.

Mitch Garber is the CEO of Caesars Acquisition, which controls the World Series of Poker and several casinos in Las Vegas, New Orleans and Baltimore. In 2015, he became an investor in and chairman of the Cirque du Soleil.

Darren Glatt is a partner at Searchlight Capital Partners. Previously, he served as partner at Apollo Global Management. Mr. Glatt sits on the board of Ocean Outdoor, and is chairman of the board for 160over90. He graduated summa cum laude from George Washington University and holds an M.B.A from the Harvard Business School.

Taylor Rhodes is CEO of Rackspace, having previously held positions as president, senior vice president and chief customer officer. He also served as senior vice president and managing director of Rackspace’s international operations. Before joining Rackspace, Mr. Rhodes worked at EDS. He is a former U.S. Marine Corps infantry officer and received an M.B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

David Sambur is a senior partner at Apollo Global Management having joined in 2004. Prior to that time, Mr. Sambur was a member of the investment banking division of Salomon Smith Barney. He also serves on the board of directors of AGS Capital (parent of American Gaming Systems), Caesars Acquisition Company, Caesars Entertainment, Coinstar, Diamond Resorts International, EcoATM, and Redbox Automated Retail. Mr. Sambur  graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Emory University with a B.A. in Economics.

Aaron Sobel is a principal at Apollo Global Management having joined in 2011. Prior to that time, Aaron was a member of the Investment Banking group at Goldman Sachs. Mr. Sobel also serves on the board of directors of Endemol Shine Group. He graduated from the Stephen M. Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan with a B.B.A. and concentrations in finance and accounting.

In November 2016, an investor group led by funds managed by affiliates of Apollo Global Management acquired Rackspace and initiated plans to establish a new board of directors.

[Image courtesy: Rackspace]

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