Leading Through a Pandemic

For Kevin Jones, CEO of Rackspace Technology, COVID-19 was not his first experience with a pandemic.

Jones was living in Singapore in 2009 when he contracted H1N1, more commonly known as the swine flu. Though he was only ill for about a week, Jones took away lessons from that time that he hoped he would never have to use again.

Fast forward to January 2020, when news about COVID-19 started to sound very familiar. Jones’ previous experience with a pandemic, and his firsthand knowledge of the impacts of a quarantine, begin to shape his thoughts and strategies for how to keep a company of 7,000 people running at peak performance. While a pandemic the scale of COVID-19 is, according to Jones, “difficult, but not impossible to plan for,” his first move was to develop a five-point plan to mitigate the impacts of the pandemic and maintain performance.

In this episode of the Cloud Talk podcast, we highlight the decisions that made big differences in how Rackspace Technology adapted to the changing landscape of COVID-19. In a short but impactful 30 minutes, Jones and host Jeff DeVerter, Rackspace Technology CTO, share the positive impacts that leadership can have on an organization during a time of crisis, and how to identify your top priorities and enable your teams to succeed during unpredictable times.

Listen now to learn more about:

• Techniques for making an impact in a new position
• The management system that Jones put into place when he arrived at Rackspace Technology, and the immediate impact it had on the company
• The five-point plan Jones developed to manage the COVID-19 pandemic
• How incremental improvement can make a huge impact over time

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