30 Notable IT Executive Moves: July 2011

IT Executives Through The Out Door

Calendar 2011 has been a year loaded with notable IT executive moves, but July may have been the busiest month yet, with major CEO exits, some big changes in the executive ranks at HP, Cisco, Juniper and other major IT vendors, and some channel partner team members making surprising announcements.

Here's a look at the big moves that happened this month. There were way more than 30, but here's a look at key-channel facing moves.

Stephen DiFranco

Nearly a year and a half after stepping into the most high profile channel chief role on the planet, HP's Stephen DiFranco is moving even higher up the HP food chain. HP in mid-July confirmed DiFranco as its new senior vice president and general manager, Americas, for HP's Personal Systems Group. No successor has yet been named to fill DiFranco's channel shoes, but DiFranco has the choice of who that executive is.

Stephen DeWitt

Stephen DeWitt, whose post DiFranco is taking, will now be senior vice president and general manager of HP's WebOS global business unit, charged with taking the WebOS operating system HP acquired with Palm and making it a viable sale -- on tablets and other mobile devices -- for HP partners. In a recent interview with CRN, DeWitt said that when HP gets WebOS running on Windows PCs, home appliances, printers and a range of other devices, the developer community around WebOS will explode.

Jon Rubinstein

The third major piece of HP's channel and Americas executive shakeup is Jon Rubinstein, the former Palm CEO and visionary behind the WebOS-based HP TouchPad tablet. With DeWitt in the role, Rubinstein will move to a product innovation role inside HP's Personal Systems Group, though HP hasn't offered additional details about what his job entails.

Joe Bottazzi

Not a week goes by, it seems, without new word of an executive shakeup at HP. The latest instance was Joe Bottazzi, a 31-year HP veteran and senior vice president and general manager of HP's Technology Services Americas business, who left the company. Mike Cronin, director of strategy and operations for HP's Americas Technology Services, is serving as acting general manager.

David DeWalt

After four years at McAfee, which was last year acquired by Intel, David DeWalt is headed for the exits. DeWalt, McAfee's president, resigned in mid-July, but plans to continue as a non-employee member of the McAfee Board of Directors. Mike DeCesare, executive vice president for global operations, and Todd Gebhart, executive vice president and general manager of consumer, mobile and small business, will become McAfee's co-presidents as of its third quarter.

Bob Muglia

Twenty three years at Microsoft weren't enough to keep Bob Muglia around any longer. Muglia, who was ousted from his role as president, Server & Tools Business in January and left Microsoft this summer, was named executive vice president, Software Solutions Division at Juniper Networks. Muglia will head up Juniper's software-focused offerings, and is charged with accelerating the momentum behind Junos space, MobileNext, and other key pieces of the Juniper software strategy. He reports directly to Juniper CEO Kevin Johnson, himself a Microsoft veteran.

Andrew Sage

Cisco is in the midst of one of the biggest transformations in the company's decorated history, with more than 6,500 layoffs confirmed this month as part of a bold restructuring. Part of that restructuring is new roles for many of its best-known channel executives, and one of those is Andrew Sage, who ran SMB sales at Cisco and is now vice president, worldwide partner-led, in charge of Cisco's new partner-led strategy to drive more sales through channel partners. Sage reports to Cisco Worldwide Partner Organization SVP Keith Goodwin, and essentially replaces Dave O'Callaghan, who is retiring from his role as vice president, worldwide commercial sales, and the unit that preceded the partner-led piece of Cisco's organization.

Karl Meulema is another major Cisco executive to retire, as well. Meulema was senior vice president, global strategy and operations.

Amanda Jobbins

Cisco has finally replaced Luanne Tierney, who ran partner marketing at the networking kingpin, but left for a similar role at Juniper in January. As part of the structural changes to Cisco's channel organization, Amanda Jobbins is now CIsco's vice president, worldwide marketing, following a previous role as vice president, European marketing. Her role will be a little different than that of Tierney's, in that she'll be more closely aligned with Cisco's corporate marketing team and report to Blair Christie, Cisco's chief marketing and communications officer.

Doug Albregts

Doug Albregts, the highly regarded vice president of sales and marketing for Samsung's enterprise business division, bid adieu to Samsung earlier in July, opting for a new post as a vice president and general manager at American Express. Todd Bouman, Samsung DIrector of Marketing, is manning Albregts' post at Samsung until the electronics giant finds a suitable replacement.

Gerald Quindlen

The numbers didn't align for Gerald Quindlen, the president and CEO of Logitech, who resigned from the company in late July following another quarter of earnings and sales disappointments.

Logitech Chairman Guerrino De Luca, who ran Logitech as CEO and president from 1998 to 2008, has stepped back into the role on a temporary basis. The changeover happens at a critical time in Logitech's history, especially for the channel, for which it is touting its Logitech for Business unit and also seeing gains behind LifeSize, the videoconferencing vendor Logitech bought in 2009.

Francois Daumard

Francois Daumard, a former well-known channel executive at Microsoft, is now at Apple, which he joined in May as a channel development manager for iPhone and iPad. Given the often-tricky nature of Apple's channel, perhaps Daumard -- whose responsibilities include recruitment and sales enablement of channel partners that want to deploy mobility solutions on Apple devices -- will be a breath of fresh air.

Andy Bryant

Longtime Intel executive -- as in 1981 -- Andy Bryant, will become Intel's chairman in May 2012, and has been named vice chairman in the interim. Jane Shaw, who has been Intel's board chairman since that time, will retire when Bryant takes over. Bryant, whose current title is executive vice president and chief administrative officer at Intel, has held a range of roles at Intel, including the 13 years he spent as chief financial officer. He is also actively involved in the selection process for an eventual successor to Intel CEO Paul Otellini, who is 60, and thus must vacate the top job at Intel by the time he's 65 according to Intel bylaws.

Lowell McAdam

Lowell McAdam officially gets the big chair at Verizon Communications on Aug. 1, Verizon confirmed in mid-July. Long seen as the heir apparent to Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg, McAdam has most recently headed Verizon Wireless, the joint venture of Verizon and Vodafone Group. Seidenberg, according to Verizon, will remain Verizon's chairman.

Amnon Bar-Lev

For those who doubt channel chiefs can be tapped to run companies, look no further than Amnon Bar-Lev, who is Check Point Software Technologies' new president. Bar-Lev was previously Check Point's top channel executive, and he'll maintain oversight of Check Point's global partner program in his new role. He will continue to report to Gil Shwed, Check Point's founder, chairman and CEO.

Ray Villeneuve

Riverbed Technology launched a new business unit to focus on cloud storage acceleration, and heading up that unit is former NetApp executive Ray Villeneuve will focus on Riverbed' Whitewater cloud storage accelerator appliance and how that product line is supported. Villenueve's decorated resume includes stints as vice president of marketing at NetApp, and CEO roles at several startups.

Omar Khan

Omar Khan, the CTO at Samsung Mobile and a key piece of Samsung's U.S. mobile strategy, left Samsung for a position at Citigroup. Khan, well-known in the Samsung and mobile communities as one of the company's most visible spokespeople, leaves a void, according to many partners and mobile market observers.

Meaghan Kelly

Former HP SMB Advisory Council manager Meaghan Kelly has a new role within HP, and now holds the title of vice president, channel strategy. Kelly was previously vice president of the SMB Strategy Group in HP's Americas Solution Partner Organization, and has been a key driver of HP's SMB channel strategy, including the launch of SMB Central, for helping HP partners find opportunities in the segment. Stepping into the SMB Advisory Council leadership role is Billy Nerenberg, former Intel and Microsoft executive.

Tracy Newell

There have been a number of big changes to Polycom's executive team over the past two years, and the most recent addition is Tracy Newell, Polycom's new executive vice president, global sales, in charge of Polycom's global sales operations and execution. A highly regarded industry veteran, Newell comes to Polycom from Juniper, where she was senior vice president of worldwide general business sales, and before Juniper, held several positions at Cisco, including a worldwide sales leadership role for its WebEx product line. All of Polycom's theater presidents -- Americas, Asia Pacific and EMEA -- report to Newell, who reports to Polycom President and CEO Andrew Miller.

Carl Gustin

Meru Networks has a new chief marketing officer in Carl Gustin, a longtime marketing executive with highly regarded stints at Eastman Kodak, Digital Equipment Corp. and Apple on his resume. Gustin joins Meru at a pivotal time in its history, when the wireless vendor is pushing its virtualized 802.11n wireless technology deeper into enterprises and stressing the importance of an all-wireless, truly mobile edge.

Amitabh Srivastava

Amitabh Srivastava, who stepped down from a key cloud development post at Microsoft earlier this year amid changes in that company's Server and Tools Business, is now president of EMC's Advanced Storage Division. Srivastava had been with Microsoft since 1997 and played a key role in the development of Microsoft's Windows Azure cloud computing platform.

Rick Stevenson

Opengear, which specializes in the console server and remote management space, announced Rick Stevenson as its new CEO, replacing outgoing CEO and current Executive Chairman Bob Waldie. Stevenson's resume includes a CEO gig at network security player SnapGear -- later sold to McAfee, where he was vice president, product development -- and senior executive roles at IBM, Secure Computing, Stallion Technologies and Pyramid Technology.

Ryan Bidan

Some of Research In Motion's (RIM) best and brightest are exiting the mobile vendor at a rapid clip as RIM's fortunes -- and market confidence -- continue to deteriorate. One of the big ones recently was Ryan Bidan, who was senior product manager for BlackBerry Playbook, and is now director of product marketing at Samsung Telecommunications. Bidan had been at RIM since Oct. 2008, and was previously product manager, games for part of the eight years he spent at Microsoft.

Greg Forrest

Well-known in the Avaya and broader networking channel for his role as CEO of Xeta Technologies, a Broken Arrow, Okla. solution provider and Avaya Platinum partner, Forrest's future at Xeta became less clear when Xeta was acquired by Paetec for about $61 million earlier this year. In a July note to colleagues and contacts, Forrest confirmed his departure from Xeta following the completion of the Paetec acquisition, and Forrest said his next move is yet to be determined.

Steve Nola

Integrator giant Dimension Data has made no bones about its cloud computing ambition, and following its acquisition of cloud player OpSource in early July, named a chief executive for its newly formed Cloud Solutions business unit. That executive is Steve Nola, who has spent the last 10 years as CEO of Dimension Data, Australia. Nola led DiData's Australian cloud push, which included the 2008 acquisition of BlueFire, a Sydney-based managed services, hosting and cloud provider.

Thomas Richards

CDW recently made clear that Thomas Richards, president and COO and long-mentioned as the CEO heir apparent of the direct market reseller giant, will officially take over for John Edwardson on Oct.1. Edwardson has been CEO of CDW, an $8.8 billion solution provider, for 10 years, and plans to stay in as chairman through at least 2012. Edwardson, a former American Airlines executive, oversaw the doubling of CDW's annual revenue since his 2001 arrival. Richards, who came to CDW in 2009 after a stint as COO of Qwest Communications, will be taking over an evolving CDW that still has big questions around its services identity in the market, according to channel observers.

Ted Hulsy

Ted Hulsy made a name with partners as director of channel marketing at SonicWall, but in early July, Hulsy was confirmed as the first vice president of marketing at eFolder, the online storage service provider. Part of Hulsy's charter is to assist Jan Spring, vice president of eFolder channel development, in driving demand for eFolder's product set.

A Citrix Trifecta

Citrix in late July announced a trio of new executive hires, each of whom has spent ample time in the respective trenches at HP, Cisco and Symantec. One is Bob Schultz, a nine-year HP veteran, now Citrix's group vice president and general manager, Citrix Enterprise Desktops and Applications. Another is Shankar Iyer, who joined Cisco through its 2007 acquisition of WebEx, but is now Citrix's vice president, product management, Receiver and End-User Services. A third is Eric Hintz, a 15-year veteran of Symantec, and now vice president of global marketing and e-commerce in Citrix's Online Services Division.

Joshua Corman

It's been quite a career for security ace Josh Corman, who was principal security strategist at IBM Internet Security Systems before moving over to the 451 Group, as research director of enterprise security, in 2009. Now, for Corman, a new challenge: he's been confirmed to run the Security Intelligence team at Akamai, where he'll report to Akamai CSO Andy Ellis. Among other highlights, Corman is known for having founded the Rugged Software initiative with David Rice, Apple's director of global security, and Jeff Williams, CEO of Aspect Security.

Hank Vigil

Another big change at Microsoft is that of Hank Vigil, senior vice president of strategy and partnership, who was confirmed to be exiting the software giant in early July, and is said to be moving to a role investing in and advising startup companies. Vigil, a 25-year Microsoft veteran, is set to depart Microsoft this fall, but will also become a strategic advisor to the company.

Jun Xu

Huawei Symantec, a joint venture of the Chinese telecom company and the Silicon Valley-based security giant, is beating a path into the U.S. networking market, hoping to challenge incumbents like Cisco on their home turf. One of the key executives involved in that push is Jun Xu, who left Brocade in early July to become solutions architect at Huawei Symantec, and before joining Brocade in late 2010, spent five years at Cisco.

Check out more IT executive moves from June.