Founder & CEO
Rob founded Avatara in 2005 with the goal of providing enterprise level IT to the SMB market. After 15 years in the IT world, Rob knew that he wanted to change three ways that they delivered their CompleteCloud Solution: the technical and distribution architecture, the capital model, and the economic model. Hardware would be moved off premise and into a data center, customers would not have to buy and maintain hardware, and they would be billed as a monthly utility service.
Before Avatara, Rob was Chief Executive Officer of Savvis from 1999-2005. Savvis started as a $20 million business and during his time as Chief Executive Officer, Rob successfully complete revitalized Savvis; turning it into one of the top 5 largest technologies IPOs (and is still in the top 10 today).
Additionally:
- Savvis went from $20 million when they were acquired to $400 million in three years, raised $465 million when they public, and got another $150 million from private investments.
- When Rob left Savvis it was worth $1 billion in revenue.
- Savvis had 1 million square foot of data center space.
- Gartner’s Magic Quadrant ranked Savvis as the leader in managed hosting, ahead of large companies like IBM.
- Created the first virtualized managed hosting platform.
- Acquired Intel Hosting Business, WAM!NET, and Cable and Wireless US Hosting Business.
Before Avatara
Rob started his career as a Software Engineer in 1989 at Bridge Information Systems and worked there for 10 years, quickly progressing to Chief Operating Officer. Bridge Information Systems acquired Savvis as a platform company in 1997, pushed all of Bridge Information System’s technology into Savvis, and Rob was named Chief Executive Officer in 1999.
While at Bridge Information Systems Rob:
- Built the first internet protocol based market system and was deployed to 3,000 U.S. based institutions.
- Established a 40 country global IP network for content and electronic trading for the stock exchange and all major financial institutions.
- Helped Bridge Information Systems reach $1 billion in revenue.
- Acquired Knight-Ridder Financial, Dow Jones’ Telerate, Automatic Data Processing Inc.
Avatara is now Rob’s third iteration of a new business model that has not ever been done in the industry.
On the off chance Rob isn’t working, he is spending time with his wife, 3 dogs, or 3 daughters.