BEA To Lose Another Key Sales Exec

BEA Systems

Matt Green, president of worldwide sales, will retire at the end of the month, a BEA spokeswoman told CRN. Green, 43, has been with the company for about five years and is leaving to pursue personal interests, she said.

In April, Rauline Ochs, senior vice president of global alliances at BEA and the key designer of BEA's channel-friendly sales strategy, left the company. Ochs reported to Green.

Green is helping with his organization's transition through the end of the month, while BEA conducts an open search to find a replacement, the spokeswoman said. Until then, BEA's four regional general sales managers will report directly to Chairman, President and CEO Alfred Chuang, she said.

Mike Shook, president and CEO of Strategic Technologies, a Cary, N.C.-based solution provider that resells and builds solutions using BEA middleware, attributed Green's departure to the uncertain economic climate in which, he said, anything can happen.

"These are strange times," Shook said when told that Green was leaving. "Everybody's off 30 [percent, 40 percent. Some crazy behavior could surface during these times."

Green's departure comes after months of executive uncertainty within BEA's channel organization. Since Ochs' departure, BEA's Vice President of Global Alliances Gamiel Gran, who joined the company in the fall of 2001 from Oracle, has been acting as interim channel chief. Instead of replacing Ochs with one person, BEA recently told CRN it would appoint one person as head of channel marketing and another to lead channel sales.

Earlier this month, Mercedes Ellison, who was most recently at Siebel Systems, joined BEA to lead channel marketing as senior vice president of marketing. Ellison reports directly to Tod Nielsen, chief marketing officer, a former Microsoft executive who came to the company last year when BEA acquired ISV Crossgain.

In other news, BEA Tuesday named Olivier Helleboid president, BEA products. Helleboid is an 18-year Hewlett-Packard veteran who most recently led Rainfinity, an e-business software company.

The BEA spokeswoman said Chuang is focused on upgrading BEA's management team, and that the recent executive changes at the company are a positive thing.