Management Team

Lance Crosby, Esq.

Chief Executive Officer

Prior to SoftLayer, Mr. Crosby spent five years with The Planet as Chief Operations Officer where he managed all operations including sales, provisioning, product selection, managed services, application development, engineering, information security, business development, and legal departments. Serving in prior executive management roles at Catalog.com and Dallas Internet, he brings extensive experience in leadership and management skills coupled with extensive technical skills in software and hardware environments. Mr. Crosby holds bachelor's degrees in Finance and Management, a MS in Finance and MBA from Tarleton State University, a part of the Texas A&M University System, and a JD from Texas Wesleyan School of Law. Mr. Crosby is a licensed attorney in the State of Texas and an active member of the State Bar of Texas.

Walter Berger

Chief Financial Officer

Prior to joining SoftLayer Technologies, Mr. Berger was the CFO and Executive Vice President of Leap Wireless International Inc. From 2006 to 2008, Mr. Berger served in senior management roles at CBS Corporation, including as Executive Vice President and CFO for CBS Radio, a division of CBS Corporation. Prior to joining CBS Radio, Mr. Berger served as Executive Vice President and CFO and a director of Emmis Communications from 1999 to 2005. From 1996 to 1997, Mr. Berger served as Executive Vice President and CFO of LG&E Energy Corporation and in 1997 was promoted to group president of the Energy Marketing Division, where he served until 1999. Early in his career, Mr. Berger held a number of financial and operating management roles in the manufacturing, service and energy fields. Mr. Berger began his career in audit at Arthur Andersen in 1977. Mr. Berger is a certified public accountant and holds a Bachelor of Arts in business administration from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Tom Blair

Senior Vice President Global Sales

Tom Blair joined SoftLayer in November, 2010. As Senior Vice President Global Sales, Tom directs the company's entire span of sales activities, including revenue generation, customer relationship management and retention, business development and sales engineering, as well as channel and alliance partnerships. Prior to joining Softlayer, Mr. Blair served as Vice President of Global Sales and Channels at The Planet, as senior vice president for Channel Sales and Strategic Alliances at Terremark Worldwide, Inc.; vice president for worldwide sales, Managed Services with Data Return Corporation (acquired by Terremark in 2007); in sales leadership at Octel Communications (acquired by Lucent); and in sales and marketing with Xerox Corporation. Throughout his career, Tom has developed comprehensive sales and partnership programs that have driven exceptional revenue growth and increased corporate market share. He holds a B.S. in Business Administration and Marketing from the University of South Carolina's Moore School of Business.

Nathan Day

Chief Scientist

As Chief Scientist, Nathan Day is responsible for design, creation, and implementation of the proprietary SoftLayer Infrastructure Management System (IMS). Prior to SoftLayer, Mr. Day served as Vice President of Development at The Planet where he oversaw the back-end management system. Prior to joining The Planet, Mr. Day held the position as Senior Application Developer at Catalog.com. His employment history includes positions with Texas Instruments, MCI WorldCom, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He brings extensive experience in product and software development. His skill set includes PHP, Cold Fusion, Perl, HTML, XML, C, C++, and Python. Mr. Day earned a Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering and a Master of Science degree in Aerospace Engineering from Texas A&M University.

Sam Fleitman

Chief Operations Officer

Sam Fleitman joined SoftLayer in June, 2005 as the Chief Operations Officer directly responsible for IT systems, customer service, and datacenter operations. Mr. Fleitman was the former VP of Information Systems at The Planet for over three years. Prior to The Planet, Mr. Fleitman held the CTO position with Catalog.com. His background includes work experience with Oracle and Texas A&M University. As CTO of Catalog.com, Mr. Fleitman designed and built one of the first fully-scalable ICANN-accredited virtual hosts, totaling over 30,000 virtual servers. He is an Oracle database administrator with extensive development skills in multiple languages including Cold Fusion, C, C++, Perl, PHP, Python, SQL, PL/SQL, Oracle, ASP, Java, and others. Mr. Fleitman holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering Sciences from Texas A&M University.

George Karidis

Chief Strategy Officer

George Karidis joined SoftLayer in January, 2008, and is responsible for the company’s strategic growth and marketing activities. Prior to joining SoftLayer, Mr. Karidis spent seven years with Devonshire Investors, the private equity arm of Fidelity Investments. There he drove the strategic planning efforts of portfolio companies focused on the telecom, hosting, and software markets, taking active roles in each company from inception through domestic growth and international expansions. Previously, Mr. Karidis led business development for a startup serving the SME market, and spent more than 6 years with the Yankee Group as an industry analyst covering the telecom and IT sectors. He holds an Honors Bachelor of Commerce Degree from McMaster University with majors in finance, accounting, and economics, and an MBA from the University of Ottawa.

Duke S. Skarda

Chief Technology Officer

Duke Skarda joined SoftLayer in November, 2010. As the CTO, he holds responsibilities for implementing, designing and enhancing the proprietary SoftLayer Infrastructure Management System (IMS). Prior to joining SoftLayer, Mr. Skarda served as the Vice President of Information Technology and Software Development at The Planet. He served in this role from June, 2009 to October, 2010. Previously, Mr. Skarda spent 10 years with Level 3 Communications in a series of increasingly responsible positions. As Senior Vice President for its Content Markets Group, he led Engineering and IT development for its Content Distribution Network platform and IT support systems. As Senior Vice President for IT Architecture and Application Development, he led a broad range of programs, including business process management, order-entry and service assurance development. Mr. Skarda also served as Vice President of IT Architecture, where he led the development of a long-range systems roadmaps, systems merger and acquisition planning, and the development of the company's Enterprise Architecture team. Additionally, he has four years of experience with Sprint. Mr. Skarda earned a B.S. in Computer Engineering and Electrical Engineering from The University of Texas at El Paso.

Simon West

Chief Marketing Officer

Simon West leads and oversees all marketing responsibilities, including corporate branding, competitive positioning, awareness and demand generation, sales enablement, analyst and public relations, market intelligence and segmentation, and marketing operations. Prior to joining SoftLayer, Mr. West served as Chief Marketing Officer for Terremark Worldwide, where his responsibilities included global marketing and brand management. Previously, Mr. West spent 11 years with Data Return, where he was part of the initial four-person start-up team and played an instrumental role in taking the company through initial business planning, product definition and systems development, through the planning and execution of an Initial Public Offering. Mr. West holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communications from the University of Texas at Arlington.