Former Cisco CFO Lands At Red Hat

Frank Calderoni

Cisco Systems' former executive vice president and CFO, Frank Calderoni, has joined open-source software specialist Red Hat, effective Monday.

Calderoni spent a decade working for the networking giant where he was responsible for managing the end-to-end financial strategy and operations at the San Jose, Calif., company, helping it to grow from $22 billion in revenue to $47 billion during his tenure. Calderoni initially revealed his upcoming departure from Cisco in November during an earnings call.

"Frank can only add a wealth of experience he saw through the rise of Cisco and help Red Hat achieve their long-term [financial] goal," said Joe Dickman, senior vice president of Vizuri, a Red Hat Premier partner based in the Washington, D.C., area.

[Related: Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst: Open Source Market Is 'Mind-Bending']

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Jim Whitehurst, president and CEO of Red Hat, said Calderoni will help lead the Raleigh, N.C.-based company into its "next phase" of revenue growth, with the goal of reaching upward of $10 billion in revenue.

Dickman said Calderoni is part of Red Hat's effort to revamp its channel leadership team.

"They also got another big-time executive from Cisco/[VCE] in D. Martin to head their channel. What they're seeing is experienced channel leaders in both channel operations with D. [Martin] and now channel finance with Frank and looking at building it out," said Dickman.

Martin joined Red Hat as its channel leader last year following a 12-year stint at Cisco and four years as vice president of global indirect channels at VCE.

Cisco and Red Hat partner on multiple fronts, including a converged infrastructure solution for OpenStack-based cloud deployments.

Calderoni brings 30 years of experience in financing at global software and technology companies including IBM, SanDisk and QLogic. He will be responsible for leading Red Hat's global finance organization and the management of IT and operations teams, reporting directly to Whitehurst.

"With the pivotal role Red Hat [has] in open-source solutions from the data center to the cloud, it is an outstanding opportunity to be a part of the driving force behind much of that innovation," said Calderoni in a statement. "I am enthusiastic about joining the team at Red Hat to help implement the next era of growth, innovation and customer success.’

Calderoni succeeds Charlie Peters, who held the CFO position at Red Hat for 11 years. His retirement was disclosed in December and he will remain with the company until July 31.

"Charles has been there through their rise. He's really given Red Hat the ability to meet their numbers," said Dickman. "Frank has some big shoes to fill."

Red Hat said under Peters' leadership, the company has delivered 44 straight quarters of revenue growth,

Calderoni's hiring comes one day before the company kicks off its annual Red Hat Summit in Boston from June 23 to June 26.

PUBLISHED JUNE 22, 2015