Opscode, Inc., the leader in cloud infrastructure automation, today announced that the company has named Mitch Hill as Chief Executive Officer, succeeding Jesse Robbins in that role. Robbins will serve as Opscode’s Chief Community Officer and will steward the vibrant community ecosystem around Opscode and Chef™.
Hill brings more than 30 years of executive leadership experience in high-growth, technology companies. He previously served as CEO of Avanade, a technology services joint venture between Accenture and Microsoft, and was responsible for launching the company in 2000. As the founding CEO of Avanade, he led the team that created a billion-dollar technology services firm successfully providing infrastructure, development and business solutions built on Microsoft technology. He was also managing partner for Accenture’s electronics and high tech business in the western United States. Since retiring from Avanade he has served as an advisor to a number of technology start ups in the Pacific Northwest. Mr. Hill earned a Bachelor of Science in Economics and Information Systems from California State Polytechnic University in Pomona.
“Opscode is at the epicenter of a major change in enterprise computing – driven by rapid adoption of cloud computing, emerging disciplines like DevOps, and infrastructure automation in a new era of lighter, more agile applications,” said Mitch Hill, Chief Executive Officer of Opscode. “I am very impressed with the Opscode team and the caliber of enterprise customers the company is attracting. I simply found this opportunity too exciting to resist.”
“Mitch was the clear and obvious choice for Opscode,” said Bill Bryant, Opscode investor and Venture Partner with Draper Fisher Jurvetson. “He is a world class CEO who built Avanade, a billion dollar business with a global footprint, from scratch. His leadership skills are extraordinary, he is deeply passionate about the role of IT in transforming business, and he brings a comprehensive understanding of how to drive strong business results.”
“Opscode’s growth continues to accelerate as large enterprises embrace cloud computing and quickly realize they need our tools to be successful. Looking at the challenges & opportunities ahead, it was time to bring in a leader whose passion for scaling businesses matched our own for scaling infrastructure,” said Jesse Robbins, Cofounder and Chief Community Officer at Opscode. “Mitch Hill has exceptional experience building great companies that solve the complex IT challenges of global enterprise customers. Mitch will take us to the next level, and I am thrilled to have him as our CEO at Opscode.”
Robbins will focus on stewarding the vibrant community ecosystem around Opscode and Chef. In just the three years since its founding, the Chef open source community has emerged as the world’s largest community in configuration management and automation with nearly 400 individual contributors and more than 80 corporate contributors including VMware, Dell and Rackspace.