# Gajen Kandiah

> Gajen Kandiah is CEO and a director of Rackspace Technology, appointed in September 2025. A NerveWire co-founder and former Cognizant Digital Business president, Hitachi Vantara CEO and Hitachi Digital president and COO, he works across enterprise services, industrial technology, cloud operations and responsible AI. He is based in Greater Boston.

- **Role:** Chief Executive Officer and Director at Rackspace Technology
- **Organizations:** Rackspace Technology, Hitachi Digital, Hitachi Vantara, Hitachi Digital Services, Cognizant, NerveWire, Cambridge Technology Partners
- **Education:** Advanced-level education, Royal College Colombo, Executive Education program; non-degree, Harvard University, Certificate in Harnessing AI for Breakthrough Innovation and Strategic Impact, Stanford University Graduate School of Business
- **Known for:** Co-founded NerveWire, later acquired by Wipro., Helped scale businesses at Cognizant during a tenure in which company annual revenue rose from $368 million to more than $16 billion., Led acquisitions including Softvision, Netcentric and Idea Couture as a Cognizant digital business leader.

## Career timeline

- **Before 2003** — Global Vice President, Interactive Solutions, Cambridge Technology Partners; subsequently co-founded NerveWire, which was acquired by Wipro.
- **2003** — Joined Cognizant, initially establishing and leading Advanced Solutions and Testing.
- **2011-2013** — Senior Vice President of Business Process Services at Cognizant.
- **2014-2016** — Executive Vice President of Business Process Services and Digital Works at Cognizant.
- **2016** — Became Executive Vice President and President, Digital Business, in August, per Cognizant’s 2017 Form 10-K.
- **2019** — Published farewell to Cognizant colleagues in June after 16 years.
- **2020** — Appointed CEO of Hitachi Vantara, effective July 13.
- **2023-2025** — President and COO of Hitachi Digital, February 2023-April 2025, per Rackspace’s appointment filing; Executive Chairman of Hitachi Digital Services from October 2023-April 2025.
- **2025** — Became CEO and director of Rackspace Technology, effective September 3.

## Achievements

- Co-founded NerveWire, later acquired by Wipro.
- Helped scale businesses at Cognizant during a tenure in which company annual revenue rose from $368 million to more than $16 billion.
- Led acquisitions including Softvision, Netcentric and Idea Couture as a Cognizant digital business leader.
- Led Hitachi Vantara and later held the president and COO role at Hitachi Digital.

## Latest updates

- **2026-09** — Rackspace announced NVIDIA Cloud Partner Program membership and plans for Blackwell-powered governed AI infrastructure.
- **2026-08** — Rackspace appointed Chetan Gupta as chief AI officer; the company reported second-quarter revenue of $670 million and net loss of $68 million.
- **2026-08** — Appeared on the Marketopolis podcast in an episode published August 19 and recorded August 7.
- **2026-07** — Rackspace and Palantir announced an operating framework for regulated and sovereign enterprise AI deployments.

## Links

- Website: https://www.rackspace.com/about/leadership/gajen-kandiah
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gajenkandiah

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/gajen-kandiah
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-10-24