Rhett Weiss

CEO, DEALTEK

Rhett has held key leadership positions at start-ups, scale-ups, major corporations, and non-profits. Having been to over 50 countries, he has been involved in $50+ billion of transactions, inside and outside the data center industry. Various deals which he led have received industry recognition, awards, and media coverage.

During his career, Rhett directed strategic development at AWS and, before that, at Google first for North America and then for EMEA (120 countries), focusing on data center investment, acquisition, and site selection. He also has been involved in data center projects in Asia and South America.

Before Google, Rhett served as Chief Operations Officer of a multi-branch bank, practiced law at a major international law firm, and directed a consulting practice at a Big 4 firm. In between Google and AWS, Rhett led Cornell University’s Entrepreneurship and Innovation Institute as its first executive director.

Currently, Rhett serves as Chairman and CEO of DEALTEK, Ltd., a consulting firm which he founded in 1999. The firm focuses on business strategy, corporate development including M&A, mission critical facility site selection and acquisition, and economic development. He is the inventor and patent holder of web-based DEALS® software and its underlying business methods, which DEALTEK uses model location-sensitive capital investment decisions.

Among his articles and books, Rhett is co-author of the book The Entrepreneurial Engineer: How to Create Value from Ideas, published by Cambridge University Press. He a frequent presenter on negotiations, entrepreneurship, innovation, and corporate/economic development including data center investment, acquisition, and site selection.