San Antonio Bootcamp Codeup Promotes Ex-Rackspace Employee to CEO

San Antonio — Web developer bootcamp Codeup has a new CEO: Kay Jones, a longtime Rackspace employee, is taking over the helm from co-founder Michael Girdley.

Jones joined San Antonio-based Codeup in February as chief operating officer, coming off of more than a decade in various roles at Rackspace (NYSE: [[ticker:RAX]]). Her most recent position was internally focused on the company’s workforce, developing plans for organizational changes and coaching other leaders on how to better manage employees at the cloud computing giant, according to her LinkedIn profile.

The new hire won’t change much at Codeup, says Girdley, who will remain executive chairman of the coding school. Girdley also runs the Geekdom Fund, a venture capital firm focused on early stage IT startups that’s investing $3.5 million.

Girdley says the leadership change is part of Codeup’s evolution into being more than just a bootcamp. “Career accelerators like us are all about getting people good careers, and we put our money where our mouth is with the only refund program in the U.S.,” he says.

Codeup offers to refund half of students’ tuition if they don’t find work within six months of graduating. It charges $17,500 for a four-month, “full-stack” program.

Author: David Holley

David is the national correspondent at Xconomy. He has spent most of his career covering business of every kind, from breweries in Oregon to investment banks in New York. A native of the Pacific Northwest, David started his career reporting at weekly and daily newspapers, covering murder trials, city council meetings, the expanding startup tech industry in the region, and everything between. He left the West Coast to pursue business journalism in New York, first writing about biotech and then private equity at The Deal. After a stint at Bloomberg News writing about high-yield bonds and leveraged loans, David relocated from New York to Austin, TX. He graduated from Portland State University.