With more than 30 years in the technology services industry, Rodney Rogers is recognized as a successful serial entrepreneur and expert technologist, known for his leadership contributions in the realization of two back-to-back “unicorns” — startups that achieve billion-dollar valuations. Today, Rod operates as a founding partner of the Blue Lagoon Companies. Blue Lagoon, through its various entities, develops, advises and invests in disruptive technology start-ups and next-generation technology companies. Rod currently serves as Chairman of the Board for UnitedLex, Inc., Lemongrass Ltd. and Bestmile S.A., as Lead Board Director for Beep, Inc., and as a Board Director for New Signature, Inc., Revenue Analytics, Inc. and agrematch Ltd.
Rod most recently led Virtustream, the enterprise-class cloud company trusted by organizations worldwide to run their mission-critical applications. He co-founded Virtustream in 2009 and was Chairman and CEO prior to its acquisition by EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC) in 2015 for $1.2 billion. Virtustream’s acquisition marked one of the largest private technology start-up exits globally in 2015, and in that acquisition year, Virtustream and Rod ranked 3rd on the Forbes list of “Best Cloud Computing Companies and Best CEOs To Work For.”
After the EMC acquisition, Virtustream became one of EMC’s four Federation operating companies with Rod as CEO reporting directly to the CEO of ~$24 billion EMC. In 2016, Dell Technologies acquired EMC for $60+ billion in the largest acquisition in the technology industry’s history. Rod then led Virtustream through its second successful post-merger integration in as many years, and ultimately on to become one of Dell Technologies’ seven ingredient brands. From 2016 until the time he retired in 2018, within Dell Technologies, Rod served as the President of the Virtustream business, a member of both the Dell EMC Infrastructure Solutions Group and Dell Services & Digital executive leadership teams, and a member of the Dell Technologies extended leadership team.
Rod has been the recipient of numerous technology industry awards including being an E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year Finalist twice, an American Business Awards CEO winner, and was recognized along with co-founder Kevin Reid as Intel Capital’s Entrepreneur/Exit of the Year in 2015. He is also an angel investor and advisor to a variety of technology startups and the co-founder and director of The Blue Lagoon Foundation, a non-profit charitable giving organization. Rod has been both the subject and author of a number of technology industry-related articles and publications.
Rod holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial & Systems Engineering from the University of Florida and is the establisher of the Rodney & Judith Rogers Entrepreneurial Excellence Endowment for the Warrington School of Business at the University of Florida. Rod also serves as an advisor to the University of Florida’s Innovate | Ventures fund.