Duane Barnes officially becomes RapidScale’s Chief Operations Officer to lead the company to further success.
IRVINE, Calif., June 17, 2020 — RapidScale, a Cox Business company, announced today that Duane Barnes has been promoted to chief operations officer. In this role, Barnes is responsible for the company’s architecture, solutions engineering, service delivery, software engineering, and customer support operations. Barnes has been in an interim capacity in this role since January of this year, and prior to that served as senior vice president of technology.
Barnes has 20 years of experience in cloud computing, virtualization, sales engineering, complex data center solutions, managing hosting projects, storage, Software as a Service (SaaS), networking, disaster recovery, security, and VoIP. Since joining RapidScale in 2016, Barnes has been instrumental in executing the company’s growth strategies. He has led his teams to accomplish pivotal milestones, including achieving an industry-leading average Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 80+, the development of an innovative single-pane-of-glass customer portal, and the growth of RapidScale’s dual headquarters in Raleigh, NC.
“Duane has been an integral part of RapidScale’s growth throughout the years, demonstrating an exceptional ability to grow market share and efficiently manage internal operations,” said RapidScale Chief Executive Officer Larry Steelman. “His leadership has contributed to our major differentiators in the market, and we are thrilled to have an innovative and trusted leader who consistently delivers results.”
Before joining RapidScale, Barnes held vice president, director, and other leadership roles in top-performing technology companies such as Windstream Hosted Solutions, Open-Xchange, and Intelisys. He also led teams at MPInet, PowerOne Communications, and the Walt Disney Company. He has obtained numerous industry certifications from Microsoft, Cisco, VMware, CompTIA, HP, and EMC.
“I’m honored to formally step into this new role with RapidScale and continue to work with the rest of the talented leadership team to drive continued success,” said Barnes. “We continue to focus on providing our clients access to their mission-critical applications from anywhere, anytime, and on any device. I couldn’t be more excited to remain a part of an organization that is committed to providing innovative managed cloud solutions and industry-leading customer care.”
About RapidScale
Flexible enough for the SMB and powerful enough for the enterprise, RapidScale, a Cox Business company, is a global managed cloud services provider helping organizations increase IT productivity, improve security, and empower remote workforces. Some organizations partner with RapidScale to manage portions of their IT, while others offload it all. Through our global network of data centers and our 24/7/365 high-touch support team, we obsess over creating an exceptional IT experience through a human approach to managed cloud. For more information on RapidScale, visit www.rapidscale.net.
Cox Communications owns Cox Business and is a facilities-based provider of voice, video, and data solutions for commercial customers. More information about Cox Communications, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Cox Enterprises, is available at www.cox.com.
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