DigitalOcean announced that it has appointed accomplished technology leader Mark Templeton as chief executive officer, effective July 1. He will also join the company’s board of directors.
“When we first founded DigitalOcean, we did so with a single focus: to make the lives of developers easier,” said Ben Uretsky, founding CEO, DigitalOcean. “With this vision, we’ve become one of the largest and fastest-growing cloud providers in the world, with a $200 million run rate and a community that is more than 3.5 million developers strong. As we enter into our next chapter, I am confident Mark is the right leader to inspire and scale our team, accelerate and grow our business, and most importantly, uphold our commitment to our customers and the developer community at large.”
As the former president and CEO of Citrix Systems, Templeton helped grow the business from a $15 million organization with one product, one customer segment, and one go-to-market path, to a global industry leader with more than 100 million users and annual revenue of over $3 billion. Templeton joined the company prior to its initial public offering and served in a leadership capacity throughout his 20 plus years with the organization. Over that time, he created a design-centric culture based on the values of respect, integrity, and humility. Under his leadership, Citrix also earned multiple “best places to work” awards, and Templeton himself was honored with several awards including a coveted spot on Glassdoor’s Highest Rated CEOs list in 2013.
“Ben and his team have carved out a unique position in the $153.5 billion public cloud services market<1> by delivering the industry’s simplest cloud computing platform and building one of the world’s largest developer communities,” said Templeton, incoming CEO, DigitalOcean. “I am inspired by the team’s passion and innovative culture, and by the enthusiasm of the developers and teams who rely on DigitalOcean’s products. It is an honor to join DigitalOcean as CEO to help lead the company during this next phase of growth.”
Templeton is a CEO mentor and an early-stage investor in a variety of new technology areas. He is chairman of the board of both Instart Logic and Adaptive Insights and serves on the board of directors for Equifax, Keysight Technologies, and Arista Networks. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in product design from North Carolina State University’s College of Design, and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business.