Leadership

Executive Leadership Team

Lance Black, Founder and Chief Executive Officer.

As President and Chief Executive Officer, Lance contributes over fifteen years of leadership experience with high-growth technology companies to deliver innovative and reliable solutions in the data center, virtualization/cloud and managed IT services markets. His fundamental goal in leading the organization is to maintain a culture committed to quality customer service and to hire and retain talented professionals who actively contribute to this goal, from executive leadership to solution support professionals and everyone in between. VAZATA was originally founded (by Lance) as Mareechi in early 2000. Lance initially grew Mareechi’s hosting business year-over-year and during a nine year-period, the company hosted applications for over 120 industry leading customers. In 2009, Mareechi merged with national colocation provider, Horizon Data Center Solutions, and rebranded as VAZATA. As CEO of VAZATA, Lance continues to challenge the bounds of technology along with his ability to attract and lead visionary IT professionals and subject matter experts. He has fueled the continued growth of VAZATA and is responsible for investor relations, strategic relationships, and day-to-day operations. He also plays a critical role in the development and positioning of VAZATA products and solutions including the vStructure™ IaaS platform and VAZATA Cabinet. Lance received his BBA in accounting from Midwestern State University.

David MacGrandle, Chief Operating Officer.

As Chief Operating Officer, David is responsible for development, execution and delivery of the company's strategic vision. David has over 20 years experience with technology service providers, and also serves as the company's Chief Financial Officer. He was most recently Chief Financial Officer at Fusepoint where he played a significant role in Fusepoint's exponential profitable growth eventually leading to its $124.5 million acquisition by Savvis (CenturyLink). Prior to Fusepoint, he was Chief Financial Officer of Masergy Communications. David held executive positions at EDS, CapRock Communications and Excel Communications where he was responsible in various roles for strategic planning, corporate development, business development and controllership. Mr. MacGrandle is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) licensed in Texas, and a Certified Management Accountant (CMA). He holds an MBA and MSMAS from the University of Texas at Dallas, and a BS degree in Applied Mathematical Sciences from Texas A&M University.

Sales and Marketing Leadership Team

Chuck Hixson, Vice President of Sales.

Chuck is responsible for leading VAZATA¹s sales and marketing teams across both the enterprise and federal government divisions. He oversees the company's go-to-market strategy for infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), complex managed hosting, cloud solutions and colocation sales. He brings over 20 years of sales leadership expertise in both large technology organizations and venture-backed startups. Before joining VAZATA, he served at VMWare as Sales Director for North Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas, where he successfully doubled regional business during the first 12-months. Chuck also served as the Vice President of Sales for Indicative Software and Borland Corporation. Chuck started his career in technology sales with IBM where he spent 13 years of his early career ultimately as the Business Unit Executive for the Western Area Software Organization.

Annie Williams, Vice President of Federal Sales. Annie Williams is the most recent executive hire for Vazata, joining the team this spring. Annie looks to bring her years of federal IT sales expertise to spearhead Vazata’s Federal and Mid Atlantic sales efforts. Prior to joining Vazata, Annie lead Terremark’ s Federal Group for the last four plus years, after spending nearly 10 years at Cisco Systems, (both as an individual sales contributor as well as a Business Development leader). Prior to Cisco, Annie worked for EMC Federal, 3Comm Federal and Digital Equipment. With over 30 years of sales achievement, the majority of her sales experience being in the federal market, she has cultivated an extensive network of past performance and committed professional relationships. In her executive capacity at Terremark, Annie was responsible for establishing Terremark’ s federal practice including the creation of a sales team and developing the channel and partner strategy, as well as driving Terremark’ s overall federal business plan for the expansion of the NAP of The Capital Region; NCR. Annie was instrumental in federalizing Terremark’s hosting suite with particular emphasis on Enterprise Cloud, and worked closely with product development on Infrastructure as a Service strategy. With Vazata’s focus on “COLO to Cloud”, Annie brings the experience of data center sales and highly complex hosting solutions to Vazata’s NoVa team. Annie received her Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from Northwestern University and has various Cisco sales certifications. Annie is an active member of ACT/IAC and has held various positions on the ELC Planning Committee as well as having participated in the ACT/IAC Partner’s program Class of 2006. Annie lives on a working farm in Culpeper, Virginia and is active on several local community Boards and Foundations.

Pete Benoit, Vice President Technical Solutions.

As Vice President of Technical Solutions, Pete Benoit has responsibility and oversight for all aspects of Sales Engineering and Support and Technical Product Marketing. Benoit joined VAZATA as the company's first Sales Engineer and has over 17 years of experience in the datacenter and network services industry. Mr. Benoit brings to the office everyday a strong work ethic and a thirst for knowledge. Prior to joining VAZATA, Mr. Benoit held positions with Internap Network Services and Nortel Networks as well as being a veteran of the United States Air Force. He received his BA from the University of Louisiana Lafayette.

RJ Thibodeau, Director of Sales.

As Director of Sales, RJ oversees the company's enterprise sales division. He works directly with customers to define business requirements and collaborates with VAZATA's Solution Design Team to develop cost-effective, optimal solutions. RJ has over 20 years of experience in technology sales management and served in the US Marine Corps. RJ held executive positions at The Siemon Company and Steadfast Solutions Consulting prior to joining VAZATA in 2008.

Heather Reasonover, Director of Marketing.

Heather serves as Director of Marketing for VAZATA. She oversees strategic marketing communications and lead generation functions for the organization and works closely with sales to ensure that VAZATA's market positioning is responsive to customer needs and demands. Heather has over 14 years of experience in B2B and digital marketing and has held executive leadership positions for both technology solutions companies and marketing agencies. Heather is a graduate of Southern Methodist University.

MONTHLY EMPLOYEE SPOTLIGHT

David Mitchell, Network Manager. Has over 10 years of experience as a Network Engineer, working in both Operations and Engineering capacities for some of the largest enterprises, carriers, and vendors. Previous positions include roles with Citigroup, Verizon Business, and Cisco. Mr. Mitchell has also acted as a lead consultant to Fortune 100 customers in disciplines of routing, switching, data center, wireless, and voice infrastructures. He looks forward to leveraging those experiences to improve upon VAZATA's already successful secure multi-tenant cloud architecture.