30 Notable IT Executive Moves: April 2011

IT Executive Moves: Can Barely Keep Up

There was moving and shaking afoot in many of the channel's most visible companies during the month of April. Here's a look at 30 notable IT executive changes.

Marty Homlish

The migration of high-profile executives from SAP to HP continues: HP in mid-April confirmed Martin "Marty" Homlish as its new chief marketing officer. Homlish was most recently the global CMO and a corporate officer at SAP and also CEO of SAP Global Marketing Inc., and at HP, replaces Michael Mendenhall, who left HP in January. HP's most famous SAP alumnus, of course, is CEO Leo Apotheker, who took the top job at HP last fall.

Thomas Hogan

HP bringeth in, and HP waveth goodbye. Thomas Hogan, who stepped down from his position as executive vice president of enterprise business sales and marketing in mid-April, is one of the highest-ranking HP executives to depart since the Apotheker era began at the computer giant. Hogan will be replaced by Jan Zadak, most recently managing director for HP EMEA.

John Wookey

John Wookey was at the center of one of the biggest rivalries in tech when he famously left Oracle for SAP in 2008. In mid-April, Wookey confirmed he's moving on from SAP, where his title was vice president, Large Enterprise On Demand. Speculation mounted that Wookey was headed for HP like so many of his former colleagues, but to date, no move has been confirmed.

Gilbert Fiorentino

A channel stunner: Gilbert Fiorentino, CEO of Systemax's Technology Products Group, was abruptly ousted from the solution provider, following an investigation of anonymous whistleblower allegations over Systemax's Miami-based operations. Details are still sketchy, but Fiorentino was placed on administrative leave by Systemax, which intends to terminate his employment. Robert Leeds was named interim CEO in Fiorentino's place.

Dan Foster

Dan Foster left MegaPath in January, but his departure was short: the affable Foster, for a long time MegaPath's channel chief and a 10-year veteran of the company, returned to MegaPath in mid-April as its president, business markets. Foster replaced Bruce Chatterley, who "departed the company to pursue other opportunities," according to MegaPath.

Debra Chraparty

Cisco has an executive exodus on its hands, and one of the biggest names to leave Cisco in April was Debra Chrapaty, who joined rising star games maker Zynga. Chrapaty, who joined Cisco from Microsoft in 2009, was senior vice president of Cisco's collaboration software group. In that role she oversaw some of Cisco's key UC and collaboration products, including the WebEx platform, and the shuttered Cisco Mail hosted e-mail product.

Dan Scheinman

After 19 years at Cisco, it was over and out for Daniel Schienman, senior vice president and general manager, Cisco Media Solutions Group. The fate of Scheinman's group remains unclear, but Eos, a SaaS-based media solutions platform debuted by Cisco in 2007, was mentioned as part of Cisco's dramatic restructuring of its consumer business. Scheinman reported to Cisco Chairman and CEO John Chambers, and before the Media Solutions Group's formation in 2007, managed Cisco's mergers and acquisitions for a number of years.

Nawaf Bitar

Another defection from Cisco to Juniper: Nawaf Bitar, Cisco's former vice president, engineering and operations, is now Juniper's senior vice president and general manager, Emerging Technologies. Bitar's move follows the jump by Luanne Tierney to Juniper, following several years running channels marketing at Cisco.

John Dragoon

Novell's sale to Attachmate, completed in late April, will no doubt mean a number of executive departures, and one already was confirmed to be channel chief John Dragoon. Dragoon confirmed the move on his Novell blog, saying that "after nearly 2,740 days at this great company, it's time to say goodbye." Dragoon, who also served as Novell's chief marketing officer, was a driving force behind several Novell initiatives, including the re-launch of Novell's BrainShare conference in 2010.

Jonathan Rosenberg

Ever since Google co-founder Larry Page took the reins from former Google CEO Eric Schmidt a few weeks ago, a number of executive moves have taken place. Most notable was Jonathan Rosenberg, who announced that he will step down as senior vice president, product management in a few months. According to sources, Rosenberg, who's been with the search giant since 2002, will have a consulting role with Google going forward, and also plans to write a book about Google with Schmidt.

Jim Wong

Acer in late-April named Jim Wong president of its Touch Business Group, a new tablet division said to spearhead Acer's mobile market strategy. He was previously head of Acer's information technology products division, and his move follows a shakeup in Acer's executive ranks that saw the departure of former CEO Gianfranco Lanci.

Jeff Epstein

No shortage of executive moving and shaking at Oracle, lately, and that includes Jeff Epstein, who resigned as Oracle's CFO earlier in April. Taking on Epstein's role is Safra Catz, Oracle's co-president, who has had the CFO role previously.

Fred Kohout

Fred Kohout is the new global head of channel marketing at EMC, presumably taking over a position vacated by Kristian Theyregod, former vice president of global channel marketing and global distribution. Most recently the CMO of UC4 Software, Kohout has also been CMO of Tagsys, and is an 18-year veteran of Sun Microsystems.

Avaya Makes Moves

Moves galore at Avaya in the past few weeks, most notably the departure of Carol Giles Neslund, who was Avaya's vice president of U.S. channels and has been with Avaya since 2008. She wasn't all, however, as Avaya confirmed John Spilotis to take over Neslund's role, as well as the hiring of former Cisco TelePresence CTO Phil Graham to be Avaya's vice president, product development and engineering, endpoints. Earlier in April, Avaya made two additional promotions: Mohamad Ali became senior vice president and president, Avaya Global Services, replacing outgoing SVP Joachim Joe Heel, and Brett Shockley became senior vice president, corporate development and strategy.

Chris O'Malley

A veteran of CA Technologies with plenty of cloud computing experience, Chris O'Malley was in early April named the next CEO of Nimsoft. Nimsoft was acquired by CA in 2010 -- a move O'Malley was active in overseeing -- and O'Malley is succeeding Gary Read in the role.

Raj Dhingra

Raj Dinghra in mid-April took over as CEO of NComputing, a rising star in the desktop virtualization market. Dhingra's is a deep background and expertise: as a 20-year IT veteran, he held various executive positions at McAfee, 3Com, SonicWall and Citrix.

Jon Gacek

A succession at Quantum: in early April, the storage vendor confirmed Jon Gacek, president and COO, took over for Rick Belluzzo as CEO. Gacek has been with Quantum since 2006 following Quantum's acquisition of ADIC. Belluzzo is a former Microsoft president and COO who took over as Quantum's CEO in 2002, and he plans to continue on as chairman and also become executive chairman.

Chris Capossela

Microsoft in early April said it would combine in its retail, mobile operator and distribution operations into one unit, the new Consumer Channels Group. Heading that group is Chris Capossela, who was named senior vice president, as well as chief marketing officer for all of Microsoft. Capossela reports to Kevin Turner, Microsoft's COO, and replaces Mich Matthews in the CMO role. Matthews is retiring this summer.

Carl Grivner

An XO uh-oh? XO Communications CEO, President and Director Carl Grivner resigned his positions earlier in April, following eight years at the service provider. The "decision to leave the company to pursue other opportunities is a personal and difficult one," Grivner said at the time. XO's board is conducting a search for internai and external candidates, according to the company.

Adam Christensen

Juniper's made a number of key hires lately, and in mid-April came word that former IBM social media manager Adam Christensen was also moving to the networking challenger. Christensen's title is director, social media and digital communications, reporting to David Shane, Juniper's vice president of corporate communications, and also working closely with Juniper CMO Lauren Flaherty and her team. Christensen spent eight years at IBM, holding various marketing and corporate communications positions.

Meru Appointments

Wireless networking challenger Meru Networks continues to expand its executive team, and in April named two new appointments: Larry Vaughan as senior vice president, worldwide sales, services and support, and Philip Simmons as senior vice president of engineering. Vaughan is a 25-plus-year IT veteran, and his resume includes Enterays Networks, Novell, Nortel, Unisys, IBM, and most recently, BMC Software. Simmons, who actually joined Meru in January, headed up DSL engineering at Motorola before his move, and before Motorola, held various engineering positions at StarNet, AMD, Retix and GEC. He holds nine patents, according to Meru.

John Gomez

AllScripts is one of the best known EMR providers in the health-care channel, but its continued growth wasn't enough to keep CTO John Gomez, who Allscripts confirmed will step down at the end of May. Gomez, according to sources, was a key executive and one of Allscripts' prime movers behind its $1.3 billion acquisition of Eclipsys in 2010.

Rocky Pimentel

Albert "Rocky" Pimentel was named executive vice president, worldwide sales and marketing at Seagate, where he now leads the global sales, operations, product line management, marketing and retail teams. A longtime IT presence, Pimentel is perhaps best known for his stints as COO and CFO of McAfee and also as senior vice president and CFO of LSI Logic. He takes over for executive vice president Kurt Richarz, who had the job on an interim basis. Pimentel also ended his tenure on Seagate's Board of Directors as a result of the appointment.

Jacob Kazakevich

Technology Capital Investors, based in New York, continues to up its investments in MSP-related businesses, and in mid-April, named Jacob Kazakevich, president of cloud provisioning platform provider OS33, a partner. In a chat with CRN, Kazakevich said he's joining TCI's board to advocate for cloud-based services and the profits they can bring.

Donald Joos

Competitive defections are a regular thing in the channel, and ShoreTel reeled in a big one in mid-April, appointing Donald Joos it's new vice president of global services. Joos, who reports to ShoreTel CEO Peter Blackmore, is a nine-year Avaya veteran who was most recently a company vice president, focused on channel transformations, integrations and global customer satisfaction, North American services, as well as other roles. Joos played a key role in the integration by Avaya of Nortel's former enterprise business, and at ShoreTel, he'll be focused on expanding ShoreTel's services to customers and through partners around the world.

Kathleen Curry

As vice president and senior director of North America Enterprise Channels at Motorola Solutions, Kathleen Curry had an active hand in Motorola's channel program and its partner ecosystem. Motorola confirmed to CRN, however, that Curry has since moved on, and is now at NCR.

Whitney Tidmarsh Bouck

Around the time it closed on an "epic quarter," Box.net confirmed it had hired Bouck, the former chief marketing officer for the Information Intelligener Group at EMC, to be its enterprise general manager.

"Box has a powerful vision for the future of cloud content management, and the recent funding and explosive revenue growth have positioned Box to win the market," Bouck said at the time.

J. Sherman Henderson III

CEO J. Sherman Henderson III isn't leaving Lightyear Network Solutions, but as of May 1, he will become chair emeritus and founder, and Stephen Lochmuller, currently Lightyear's president, will get the top job. Randy Ammon, currently Lightyear's COO, will become president and COO.

Alfred Chuang

The marquee names in IT never seem to stay out of the game too long, and that's been the case with Alfred Chuang, who in late April re-emerged with a start-up some three years after the sale of BEA Systems, a company he co-founded and was CEO of, to Oracle. Chaung's startup, Magnet Systems, has actually been around for a few years, but on April 27, Chaung confirmed that Magnet had received $12.6 million in Series A financing from Andressen Horowitz. Magnet's platform is called the Workplace Interaction Network, or WIN, which Chaung told various news outlets will develop social applications businesses.

Kevin Timmons

Another exit at Microsoft, and apparently a win for the competition: Kevin Timmons, general manager of Microsoft's Datacenter Services, was reported to have moved over to Apple for an as-yet-unconfirmed cloud role. Timmons' hiring is the latest in a series of moves suggesting Apple is getting serious about its cloud strategy.

Check out more IT executive moves from March.