Top Gun 51 Profile: Rackspace’s Michael Stephens: ‘We Have Come a Long Way During My Tenure’

Michael Stephens came to Rackspace Technology in 2016 after a 20-year stint at CenturyLink. Those two decades on the network side have greatly informed Stephens’ experience and ethos over at the managed cloud computing provider. And as agent channel chief, Stephens has been integral to the partner experience; his peers know him as an advocate for the indirect channel.

Rackspace’s Michael Stephens

That’s why Stephens secured a 2020 Top Gun 51 award. Introduced last year, the Top Gun 51 recognizes premier leaders in the indirect IT and telecom channel. The criteria includes advocacy for the channel and commitment to partners’ business success. There’s also dedication to earning the channel’s trust. We solicited input from distributors, master agents and analysts to compile our Top Gun 51 for 2020.

“I value the channel because of my personal interactions and relationships,” Stephens says. “I personally have an extended network of mentors in this channel that I will always work tirelessly for to help create success on behalf of. So I am invested both professionally and personally — and that is why I value the channel so much.”

Thanks in large part to Stephens, Rackspace has a lot in store for partners through the rest of this year and into 2021.

“We are excited for the future,” he says.

As a teaser, look for even more education and certification programs in the works for next year, surrounded by what Stephens calls “very compelling incentives.”

In this Q&A, lightly edited for clarity, learn more about what motivates Stephens, his philosophy on leadership, how he’s handling new COVID-19 norms and why he plans to stay in the channel for the rest of his career.

Channel Futures: How did you first become involved in the channel? Was it part of your overall career plan?

Michael Stephens: I had an interesting path to channel. At a tier 1 telco, I was a leader in the operations organization running a team that included sales support, order entry, billing, collections and account management for business markets. At the time, our channel chief asked me to come meet his advisory council. This partner advisory council was a cross-section of the channel’s top leaders, and they gave me great feedback on what we did well and where we could improve. From there, every six months I returned to the readout on what improvement plans I implemented based on their feedback and the associated results.

This became an iterative process. It helped me grow as a leader, improve the business and ultimately grow our partner relationships. We did this through a proven track record to listen, align with and deliver for our channel partners. During this process, I realized without knowing it that I had found a home where I wanted to reside for the rest of my career.

CF: Have you been responsible for building channel programs from the ground up? If so, where did you first start and how has the experience lent itself to your time at Rackspace Technology?

MS: During my tenure at the previous company, for a period of time I was responsible for process design and tools implementation. I had the opportunity to hone my skills around defining need, measuring results with analysis and then improving performance through modification. This analytical approach has been invaluable to me in all roles since that time. Since joining Rackspace, these very skills continue to contribute. We immediately defined our mission, where we wanted to go and …