Fast-growing network automation player Infoblox has confirmed David Gee, a nine-year veteran of Hewlett-Packard, as its new executive vice president of marketing, overseeing the company's branding, positioning, communications, campaigns, demand generation and press relations.
Gee is a well-known figure within HP, where he most recently served as vice president of worldwide marketing for HP Enterprise Services, leading global marketing teams and also playing a key role in HP's 2008 acquisition of EDS.
Gee's previous roles at HP included vice president, marketing for HP Software, vice president, worldwide marketing for HP OpenView and interim vice president, HP Software, in Asia Pacific and Japan. Before HP, Gee was vice president, international for Yahoo! Enterprise Solutions, and had previously been vice president for Sun Microsystems' Global iForce programs and a director with IBM's NetGen group.
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At Infoblox, Gee reports to Robert Thomas, president and CEO, who said Gee's experience will be "instrumental" in building the Infoblox brand.
"His passion for enterprise technology and his proven ability to make even the most complex technology simple will be key to supporting the company's overall strategic direction and growth," Thomas said in a statement.
Infoblox is a big fish in the emerging market for network automation technology, and about 90 percent of its sales go through solution providers. Gee joins a growing list of executives brought on to help grow the company's market presence, including Tim Colby, vice president of worldwide channels, who joined Infoblox last August following five years at Aruba Networks.
Infoblox in February launched its Channel Invest & Profit (IP) program to formalize its channel outreach and create an Elite tier of partners -- about 50 worldwide from roughly 600 overall -- to whom the company wants to strategically align.
Steve Garrison, vice president of marketing, recently told CRN that data center optimization, cloud computing and IPv6 upgrades were all fueling interest in Infoblox's technology, which is variously grouped under the term DDI, or domain name system (DNS), dynamic host figure protocol (DHCP) and IP address management solutions.
"Five years ago, it was a nice-to-have," Garrison said. "But the spreadsheets and freeware are running out of gas. Timing is everything."
Infoblox in January filed a Form S-1 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in preparation for a planned $125 million initial public offering. Infoblox said in the filing that its revenue had more than doubled in the past two years, from $61.7 million in 2009 to $132.8 million in 2011, but that it had taken a loss of $5.3 million for the year ended July 30, 2011.
Gee is one of a number of HP executives that have left the computing giant since Meg Whitman became CEO in September 2011.
HP recently confirmed the pending departure of Vyomesh Joshi, a 31-year veteran and executive vice president of its Imaging and Printing Group (IPG), which will be merged with its Personal Systems Group under Executive Vice President Todd Bradley. Elsewhere, AllThingsD reported this week that Prith Banerjee, senior vice president, HP Labs, will be leaving HP as of April 15.
