By Lori HawkinsCodero Hosting ? a fast-growing Kansas-based data center operator ? is accelerating its expansion in Austin.The move comes nine months after Codero hired Austin technology veteran Emil Sayegh as its CEO.Sayegh, who is based in Austin, opened an office in the Westlake Hills area to handle product development, marketing, customer support and sales.The office now has 15 employees and will more than double its workforce over the next year, Sayegh said. The company is hiring in engineering, customer support, marketing and sales.Founded in 2009, Lenexa, Kan.-based Codero provides cloud hosting services to several thousand companies worldwide, ranging from small businesses to large financial services firms. Its customers include Expedia, Delta Airlines and the United Way.“Austin is becoming a little mecca for cloud and hosting services, and we’re here because there is a great pool of talent,” Sayegh said. “It’s also easy to get people to move to Austin, and we have recruited a number of people into town. Our head of sales moved here from Denver, and our head of network engineering came here from San Antonio.”The company, which has 60 employees nationwide, has offices in Lenexa and Phoenix and operates data centers in Chicago, Phoenix and Ashburn, Va. It is backed by New York private equity firm Catalyst Partners.Codero doesn’t disclose financial information, but Sayegh said revenue grew 20 percent this year over the previous year and the company is profitable.Sayegh, who joined Codero in February, was previously the Austin-based vice president of cloud services for Hewlett-Packard and grew the company’s Austin-based cloud division to 100 people.Before that, he was vice president and general manager at San Antonio-based Rackspace’s cloud computing division. He helped open the company’s Austin office, which now employs more than 400 people.Codero this week announced it has hired cloud computing veteran Chandler Vaughn to serve as senior vice president of product development.Vaughn, who will be based in Austin, was most recently vice president of cloud product development at SunGard, a global software and services company based in Wayne, Pa.Before joining SunGard in 2010, Vaughn held product management positions at Rackspace, where he launched both the company’s cloud servers and cloud files product lines.Vaughn will be responsible for building out development, product management and strategic partnerships for the company.Vaughn said, “Austin’s vibrant technology community and reputation for being a hub of innovation will benefit Codero significantly, helping us to continue our expansion and enabling us to better serve our global base of customers.”