Rackspace Hires Hitachi Vet As New CEO In Wake Of Quarterly Losses

Rackspace, which has seen its revenue steadily fall since it peaked in its fourth fiscal quarter 2021, has brought former Hitachi and Cognizant executive Gajen Kandiah as its new CEO, while former CEO Amar Maletira moves aside to become vice chairman of the board.

Hybrid cloud technology provider Rackspace Technology Tuesday said it has appointed Gajen Kandiah as its new CEO effective Wednesday.

Kandiah (pictured above), a long-time executive in various Hitachi businesses including a stint as CEO of Hitachi Vantara, is taking over as Rackspace CEO from Amar Maletira.

Maletira, who served as Rackspace’s CEO since September of 2020 after serving two years as the company’s president and chief financial officer, is moving aside to become its vice chairman of the board and continue serving on the board to help Kandiah transition into the CEO role.

Kandiah brings a wide range of experience around services, infrastructure, software, and AI. He served as president and chief operating officer at Hitachi Digital for over two years following a 1.5-year stint as executive chairman of Hitachi Digital Services and chairman of Hitachi Cyber. Prior to that, he served several other executive roles within Hitachi starting with his move to take over as CEO of Hitachi Vantara.

Prior to Hitachi, Kandiah also spent over 15 years at Cognizant, leaving that company in June of 2019 as president of its digital business and digital engineering.

The change in Rackspace’s executive leadership comes after the San Antonio-based company reported quarterly year-over-year revenue decreases since revenue peaked at $777 million during its fourth fiscal quarter 2021. Rackspace also reported GAAP losses for five of the last six quarters.

The company most recently reported in early August that its revenue for fiscal second quarter 2025, which ended June 30, was $666 million, down 3 percent over the last year. The company also reported cloud revenue of $250 million, down 4 percent, and public cloud revenue of $417 million, down 2 percent.

Rackspace also reported a GAAP net loss of $55 million for the quarter compared to a GAAP profit of $25 million the previous year.

Rackspace did not respond to a CRN request for more information by press time.

However, Rackspace Chairman Jeffrey Benjamin in a prepared statement called Kandiah a “proven operator across services, infrastructure, software, and AI, and thanked Maletira for his service.

“On behalf of the entire Board of Directors, I thank Amar for his leadership in driving Rackspace’s transformation into a customer-centric, forward-leaning hybrid cloud and AI solutions company, while establishing a scalable business in regulated industries,” Benjamin said.

Kandiah, in a prepared statement, said he is honored to lead Rackspace Technology and its team of ‘Rackers.’

“What draws me most is the Racker culture and our unwavering dedication to customer success. As industries take AI to production, they need the governed multicloud operations that our talented teams design, build, and operate across private, public, and sovereign clouds. It’s exciting to lead an organization that gives customers real choice while simplifying how workloads are managed and protected,” he said.