Cloudreach Appoints Aaron M. Painter as Chief Executive Officer

By STS News Desk On Jul 26, 2018

Cloudreach Placed as a Visionary in 2021 Magic Quadrant for Public Cloud IT Transformation Services

Former Microsoft Executive Brings 15+ Years of Experience in the Global Technology and Public Cloud Market
Pontus Noren Named Vice Chairman of Cloudreach and Senior Advisor to Blackstone

Cloudreach (“the Company”), a leading global software-enabled cloud services provider, today announced the appointment of Aaron M. Painter as Chief Executive Officer, effective August 1, 2018. Mr. Painter succeeds Pontus Noren, who has been named Vice Chairman of Cloudreach and will become a Senior Advisor to Blackstone.

Founded in 2009 to support customers in their journey to adopt the public cloud, Cloudreach is a unique “born-in-the-cloud” software enabled services business. Today, Cloudreach has a broad range of public cloud services that help companies: build their cloud adoption strategy; migrate, modify or write applications for the public cloud; design or run their application development environment; and manage (monitor and optimize) their applications in the public cloud. Recognized in Gartner’s magic quadrant for its technical and operating strength, Cloudreach has over 250 enterprise customers, supports Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform, and operates through 18 regional offices across both North America and Europe.

Having worked across four continents, Mr. Painter brings more than fifteen years of sales, marketing and product development experience in the global technology and public cloud market. He most recently served as Vice President and General Manager for Microsoft in China, where he led a team out of Beijing that provided cloud-based ERP and CRM software solutions to enterprises. He was previously based in the U.S., Brazil and France, where he served as Chief of Staff to the President of Microsoft International and managed operations for Microsoft’s global sales, marketing and services division in more than 190 countries.

“Having been firmly established as the global leader in enterprise cloud adoption, migration and modernization software and services under Pontus’ direction, and with unprecedented growth projected in the cloud services market, we are thrilled to have Aaron join us and help oversee our continued expansion,” said Dave Johnson, Chairman of the Board at Cloudreach and Senior Advisor to Blackstone. “A proven leader with deep operational and leadership expertise, Aaron is ideally situated to steer Cloudreach through its next phase of evolution and global growth. Along with the Board, I want to thank Pontus for his innumerable contributions and we are pleased that the Company will continue to benefit from his guidance as our Vice Chairman.”

“I am excited to take on this role at such an important time of digital transformation,” said Mr. Painter. “Cloud computing has become universally available, and similar to the early days of electricity, the opportunity for innovation at scale comes from the applications which become connected, the massive amounts of data collected, and the business insights that become actionable. Cloudreach has the proven solutions, cloud-native culture, and industry experience to enable any organization to become a digital leader in this new paradigm.”

As enterprises accelerate their adoption of the cloud, Cloudreach, with more than 600 employees and 250 enterprise customers, has developed the unique ability to architect, implement, optimize and modernize applications. In February 2017, Blackstone Tactical Opportunities acquired a majority stake in Cloudreach, enabling the Company to further expand its geographic reach, software development capabilities and automate its managed services and cloud operations.

“I could not be more proud of all that the Cloudreach team has accomplished over the past nine years, and the role we have played in changing the IT industry forever,” said Mr. Noren. “Cloudreach has achieved tremendous expansion and scale, making this an opportune time for me to transition to my new role as Vice Chairman and provide continued support to take advantage of the opportunities ahead of us. Aaron’s experience, combined with his leadership and global immersion, uniquely positions him to lead Cloudreach and I look forward to supporting the Company’s continued progress under his direction.”