Black will take over day-to-day performance responsibility for operations, as well as sales and marketing functions and employee development. Continuity and development of key vendor and partner relationships, such as with data center developers Digital Realty Trust and PowerLoft, will also fall under Black’s role, as will delivering new managed services products and building out Horizon’s cloud computing offerings. He will also immediately lead the process of building a new NOC and selection of new office space to bring Horizon’s Dallas offices into one location.

Prior to his work with Horizon, Black founded Horizon’s first acquisition, Mareechi, the managed services and IT outsourcing provider. He took Mareechi from start up to an impressive managed services and IT outsourcing provider with hundreds of clients across three continents. Before founding Mareechi, he worked with Computer Associates.

Chuck Smith, a Horizon co-founder, will now report to Lance Black. CEO Lance Smith will turn his attention to financing the growth of Horizon, as well as strategic mergers and acquisitions, in support of the previously announced “tri-coastal” strategy that calls for colocation data centers in each of the three national power grids, as well as potential new locations in internet data center markets.