{"id":109460,"date":"2023-08-15T07:45:00","date_gmt":"2023-08-15T14:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.backblaze.com\/blog\/?p=109460"},"modified":"2024-08-14T12:13:21","modified_gmt":"2024-08-14T19:13:21","slug":"welcome-chris-opat-senior-vice-president-of-cloud-operations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.backblaze.com\/blog\/welcome-chris-opat-senior-vice-president-of-cloud-operations\/","title":{"rendered":"Welcome Chris Opat, Senior Vice President of Cloud Operations"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"583\" src=\"https:\/\/www.backblaze.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/bb-bh-SVP-Announcement-1024x583.png\" alt=\"An image of Chris Opat, Senior Vice President of Cloud Operations at Backblaze. Text reads &quot;Chris Opat, Senior Vice President of Cloud Operations.&quot; \" class=\"wp-image-109462\" srcset=\"https:\/\/backblazeprod.wpenginepowered.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/bb-bh-SVP-Announcement-1024x583.png 1024w, https:\/\/backblazeprod.wpenginepowered.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/bb-bh-SVP-Announcement-300x171.png 300w, https:\/\/backblazeprod.wpenginepowered.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/bb-bh-SVP-Announcement-768x437.png 768w, https:\/\/backblazeprod.wpenginepowered.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/bb-bh-SVP-Announcement-560x319.png 560w, https:\/\/backblazeprod.wpenginepowered.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/bb-bh-SVP-Announcement.png 1440w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:15px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-drop-cap\">Backblaze is happy to announce that Chris Opat has joined our team as senior vice president of cloud operations. Chris will oversee the strategy and operations of the Backblaze global cloud storage platform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:10px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What Chris Brings to Backblaze<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Chris expands the company&#8217;s leadership by bringing his impressive cloud and infrastructure knowledge with more than 25 years of industry experience.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Previously, Chris served as senior vice president leading platform engineering and operations at StackPath, a specialized provider in edge technology and content delivery. He also held leadership roles at CyrusOne, CompuCom, Cloudreach, and Bear Stearns\/JPMorgan. Chris earned his Bachelor of Science degree in television and digital media production from Ithaca College.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Backblaze CEO, Gleb Budman, shared that Chris is a forward-thinking cloud leader with a proven track record of leading teams that are clever and bold in solving problems and creating best-in-class experiences for customers. His expertise and approach will be pivotal as more customers move to an open cloud ecosystem and will help advance Backblaze\u2019s cloud strategy as we continue to grow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Chris\u2019 Role as SVP of Cloud Operations<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>As SVP of Cloud Operations, Chris oversees cloud strategy, platform engineering, and technology infrastructure, enabling Backblaze to further scale capacity and improve performance to meet larger-sized customers\u2019 needs, as we continue to see success in moving up-market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Chris says of his new role at Backblaze: <\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-style-plain is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><\/p>\n<cite>Backblaze\u2019s vision and mission resonate with me. I\u2019m proud to be joining a company that is supporting customers and advocating for an open cloud ecosystem. I\u2019m looking forward to working with the amazing team at Backblaze as we continue to scale with our customers and accelerate growth.<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Welcome Chris Opat, Senior Vice President of Cloud Operations at Backblaze.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":144,"featured_media":109462,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[131,443,7,434,436],"tags":[468],"class_list":["post-109460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-backblaze-bits","category-backblaze-news","category-cloud-storage","category-featured-1","category-featured-backblaze-bits","tag-b2cloud","entry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Welcome Chris Opat, Senior Vice President of Cloud Operations<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Backblaze welcomes Chris Opat as SVP of Cloud Operations, bringing 25 years of expertise to enhance cloud strategy and drive growth.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.backblaze.com\/blog\/welcome-chris-opat-senior-vice-president-of-cloud-operations\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Welcome Chris Opat, Senior Vice President of Cloud Operations\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Backblaze welcomes Chris Opat as SVP of Cloud Operations, bringing 25 years of expertise to enhance cloud strategy and drive growth.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.backblaze.com\/blog\/welcome-chris-opat-senior-vice-president-of-cloud-operations\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Backblaze Blog | Cloud Storage &amp; 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