20 Notable IT Executive Moves: February 2011

February IT Executive Moving and Shaking

January was action-packed with notable IT executive moves, and the moving and shaking among the industry's executive echelons didn't much slow down in February.

Here's a look at 20 IT executives moves from February that hold plenty of interest for the channel.

AMD Shakeup

Two of Advanced Micro Devices' top-ranking executives were revealed to be leaving the troubled chipmaker at the beginning of February: Chief Operating and Administrative Officer Bob Rivet and Senior Vice President of Corporate Strategy Marty Seyer. Both moves followed the abrupt departure of AMD CEO Dirk Meyer in January, and point to an ongoing executive makeover at the company.

Rick Hamada

It was a long and steady climb to the top of Avnet for Rick Hamada, who after 28 years at Avnet will succeed longtime CEO Roy Vallee in July. Hamada, who is currently president and COO of Avnet, joined Avnet's Board of Directors as of February, and Vallee will continue to serve as executive chairman after the July transition.

Adrian Jones

Adrian Jones was named Everything Channel's Executive of the Year in 2008, at which time he ruled the roost among HP channel executives as HP Americas Channel Chief, driving a channel renaissance during his 2007-2009 stint in the role. But Jones moved on -- he took a job as senior vice president of Enterprise Storage Servers and Networking (ESSN) for HP Asia Pacific in October 2009 - and now it appears he's moved on from HP altogether. Jones' departure from HP was confirmed by partners and HP in late February, and speculation has since shifted to whether Jones will move to Oracle, where former HP CEO Mark Hurd is president.

Pat Hume

Former SAP channel executive Patricia Hume left SAP in January, and while some speculation at the time held that she would go to HP, Hume in February was confirmed as senior vice president, worldwide sales at GFI Software. GFI, based in Clearwater, Fla., makes security and office productivity software, and Hume is tasked with broadening GFI's worldwide channel sales reach.

John Maguire

Right at the end of January, HP named John Maguire, an 18-year IBM veteran, as its new senior vice president, worldwide sales, HP Enterprise Services. Maguire, who was most recently global managing director of sales, Health and Public Service for integrator giant Accenture, replaced Randall Runk, who had been in the role since October 2009 and left HP to "pursue other opportunities."

Satya Nadella

Amidst the ongoing changes in Microsoft's executive ranks, Satya Nadella was in early February named president of Microsoft's Server and Tools Business, replacing ousted group president Bob Muglia. At the same time as Nadella's ascent, Microsoft confirmed the departure of Ambitabh Srivastava, senior vice president of STB and an important executive behind Microsoft's Windows Azure cloud computing platform.

Gary Moore

Cisco has never before had a chief operating officer position, but it created one in mid-February, appointing services chief Gary Moore to the role. Moore, whose full title is executive vice president and chief operating officer, will be responsible for engineering, marketing, operations and services organizations at Cisco, and continue to report directly to Cisco Chairman and CEO John Chambers.

Jonathan Kaplan

Jonathan Kaplan first joined Cisco in March 2009 following Cisco's acquisition of Pure Digital, where Kaplan was CEO. Nearly two years later, Kaplan exited Cisco, following a stint as senior vice president and general manager of Cisco's Consumer Business Group. Kaplan's move was widely seen as fallout from Cisco's less-than-stellar consumer revenue numbers in its Q2 earnings report. Kaplan's group now comes under Marthin De Beer, senior vice president of Cisco's Emerging Technologies Business Group.

Rex Backman

He was the prime mover behind Microsoft's former Response Point small business VoIP system, but Rex Backman is no longer a Microsoftie. According to SMB Nation, which first reported the move in mid-February, Backman left Microsoft for Cisco after shifting to contractor status with the software giant, and will now be coordinating Microsoft solution relationships from Cisco.

Lou D'Ambrosio

The dynamic, engaging Lou D'Ambrosio built his career and his channel stature in 16 years at IBM, and in 2002, joined Avaya, where he became CEO in 2006. D'Ambrosio left Avaya in 2008 citing medical reasons, and has kept largely a low profile since, until the announcement, in late February, that D'Ambrosio would become CEO of Sears Holdings, the U.S.' ninth largest retailer.

VMware Shuffle

VMware in early February made a number of leadership changes, naming four co-presidents and chopping the "president" tag from CEO Paul Maritz's title. The co-presidents, all of whom were senior executives at VMware, are Carl Eschenbach, now co-president of customer operations; Richard McAniff, who will remain chief development officer and also become co-president of products; T. Tod Nielsen, who will remain COO and become co-president; applications platform; and Mark Peek, who will remain CFO and become co-president, business operations.

Paula Long

Storage veteran Paula Long, who was a co-founder of EqualLogic and eventually left the company after its acquisition by Dell, surfaced in early February as a new member of the board of directors for StorSimple. As provider of Windows-optimized cloud storage technology, StorStimple has some pretty heavy hitters on its board already, including Arista Networks' Jayshree Ullal and Redpoint Ventures' Satish Dharmaraj.

Alberto Torres

The hits keep coming for Nokia, which between standing on a "burning platform" and declaring allegiance to Microsoft's Windows Phone platform, has also seen an exodus of top executives. The latest, in mid-February, was Alberto Torres, executive vice president of MeeGo Computers, Mobile Solutions. It wasn't a surprise; as head of the MeeGo unit, Torres was in charge of a platform that was supposed to be Nokia's high-end smartphone OS, but was shelved in favor of Nokia's going all in with Microsoft.

Kim Niederman

Hosted communications specialist 8x8 made a big grab in early February with Kim Niederman, its new senior vice president of sales. Niederman, a well-traveled executive well-versed in channels, was previously (2003-2007) senior vice president, worldwide sales at Polycom, and earlier in his career was CEO of LongBoard, vice president of worldwide sales at RadioLAN, vice president of sales at FORE Systems, and general manager and senior director of worldwide sales at Cisco, which he originally joined shortly after Cisco's IPO more than two decades ago.

Ari Bose

Polycom in late February named Ari Bose its new Chief Information Officer, with global responsibility for Polycom's IT organization and IT strategy. Before Polycom, Bose was senior vice president, CIO and business transformation officer at UTStarcom, and before that, held positions as vice president and CIO at 3Com, and senior management roles at Apple, Nortel and Quantum.

Chad Krantz

Broadvox continued to make changes to its channel management, promoting Chad Krantz to succeed David Byrd as executive director of channel sales. (Byrd was previously named executive vice president of sale and marketing for the VoIP service vendor.) Lots going on at Broadvox at the moment, especially as it digests fellow service provider Cypress Communications following the mid-January completion of the Broadvox-Cypress merger.

Birger Steen

Virtualization vendor Parallels last August snagged Birger Steen, then Microsoft's SMB and distribution chief, to be its new president. Parallels did Steen one better in February, naming the well-traveled software executive its new CEO.

Adam Carroll

In late February, Synnex confirmed the retirement of Adam Carroll, its consumer electronics chief. Carroll was president of Synnex's New Age Electronics and Jack of All Games divisions -- he was co-founder and longtime president of New Age before its acquisition by Synnex in 2008 -- and was succeeded by Fred Towns, former senior vice president of sales and marketing for the divisions, on March 1.

John Grieci

Former EMC supply chain boss John Grieci was in late February appointed senior vice president, customer advocacy at Seagate, where he reports directly to CEO Steve Luczo. While at EMC, Grieci lead the storage giant's Global Supply Chain Management organization, and he'd been at EMC for more than two decades. At Seagate, his focus will be process improvements.

Mike Thompson

In mid-February, Mike Thompson was named the new president and CEO of Sepaton, the Marlborough, Mass.-based disk-based data protection platform specialist. Sepaton, whose name spelled backwards is "no tapes," was an early presence in the market for virtual tape library (VTL) and disk-based backup. Thompson first joined Sepaton in July 2010 as executive vice president of worldwide sales and marketing, and was formerly president, CEO and chairman of Egenera. Thompson replaces outgoing CEO Mike Worhach, who will remain with Sepaton as vice chairman of the board.

Alan Rottenberg

Alan Rottenberg was in late February confirmed as chairman of the board of directors for N-Able Technologies. A veteran of enterprise software, Rottenberg was from 1989 to 2002 a senior manager at Cognos, now part of IBM, and since 2002 has been a strategic advisor, board member and investor for a number of technology firms. Rottenberg replaces Rob Rose, director, office of strategy, for IBM's Business Intelligence and Performance Management Segment, as board chairman.