30 Notable IT Executive Moves: December 2013

The holiday season saw plenty of exits, promotions and hires. Here are the highlights from December, which include new channel faces at HP and more executive departures at Juniper Networks.

After departing Microsoft, the former president of Microsoft's Office Division has a new job. Kurt DelBene was named as senior adviser to Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, and will take over the management of the troubled Healthcare.gov website. A 21-year veteran of Microsoft, DelBene also served as vice president of Microsoft's Business Division before leaving the company last summer amid a major corporate reorganization.

Former Juniper Networks executive Donna Grothjan has joined Hewlett-Packard. Grothjan most recently served as vice president of worldwide distribution at Juniper, and will take a similar role at HP. She will be part of HP's new channel team and will report to Sue Barsamian, HP's senior vice president, worldwide indirect sales. Prior to joining Juniper in 2004, Grothjan spent 15 years at the world's largest IT distributor, Ingram Micro.

Hewlett-Packard nabbed another former Juniper Networks executive in Hojin Kim, who most recently served as Juniper's vice president of Americas partner development. Kim was named as vice president of worldwide channel operations for HP Networking. He joined Juniper in 2007 after spending nearly seven years at IBM. Kim also worked at Merisel in product management roles for four years before heading to IBM.

The list of departed Juniper Networks executives continues. Bob Muglia, executive vice president of Juniper's Software Solutions Division, resigned unexpectedly last month. He joined Juniper in 2011 after a long career at Microsoft. Muglia joined Microsoft in 1998 and served in a variety of management and executive roles, most recently as president of Microsoft's Servers and Tools Business (STB). He also served as senior vice president of STB and was a member of Microsoft's Senior Leadership Team.

Former Westcon Group President and CEO Dean Douglas has left the enterprise networking distributor to become CEO of Unify, formerly Siemens Enterprise Communications. Douglas joined Westcon Group in 2008 as COO after he served as chief executive at LCC International, a wireless engineering company. He was later promoted to president and CEO of Westcon and held the position for four years. Douglas also held senior roles at IBM and Motorola.

Taking over for Dean Douglas as president and CEO of Westcon Group is Dolph Westerbos, who most recently served as group president of Asia Pacific and Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) for Brambles, a supply chain company. He also held the title of vice president of solutions and services for Dell's EMEA region and managed Dell reseller partner relationships in Western Europe. Before Dell, he worked at supply chain company ModusLink for 12 years.

D-Link named Michael Hardy as its new vice president of channel and enterprise sales. He'll be responsible for all channel sales and marketing operations across D-Link. Hardy most recently served as vice president of sales and business development at Waterford Technology, a file and email management solutions firm. He also was regional president of Incentra and vice president of Americas sales at Quantum.

National solution provider Datalink promoted Shawn O'Grady to the newly created role of COO. O'Grady, who previously served as executive vice president, will oversee the data center solutions company's hardware and IT services business. He came to Datalink in 2009 when the company acquired solution provider Incentra, where he served as president and COO. Before Incentra, he spent eight years at Siemens AG as senior vice president of Siemens Business Services. O'Grady also worked at Entex Information Systems.

Riverbed Technology has named Keith Hoskison as its new senior vice president of worldwide channels and strategic accounts program. He replaces Randy Schirman, who was named as the company's new senior vice president of service delivery. Hoskison most recently was area vice president of showcase accounts at BMC Software. He also served as vice president of worldwide channels at Aruba Networks and spent nearly a decade as vice president of channels at Cisco.

Riverbed also saw the departure of Ian Whiting, formerly senior vice president of sales for the Americas, who became head of sales at Fusion-io. Whiting joined Riverbed in 2012 from Brocade, where he served as executive vice president of worldwide sales. He spent more than a decade at Brocade in various sales and marketing positions. Before that, he worked at Compaq, Cognos and Data Translation Networking in sales capacities.

Symantec has hired Microsoft executive Amit Mital as its new chief technology officer, where he'll focus on product development, and research and development. Mital spent more than 20 years at Microsoft and most recently served as corporate vice president at the company's Startup Business Group, where he focused on identifying new technology opportunities. He also held the position of general manager of Microsoft's Live Mesh and Developer Platform Unit.

Mital replaced former Symantec CTO Steve Trilling, who took a new senior leadership position at the security vendor to focus on operations. Trilling has spent nearly 20 years at Symantec; prior to being named as CTO, he served as senior vice president of Symantec's Security Technology and Response (STAR) division. He was also the founder and vice president of the Symantec Research Labs. Trilling often served as Symantec's public spokesperson on expert security matters.

Mitel named Chuck Krogman as its new U.S. vice president of sales for contact center. Krogman will report to Joe Vitalone, executive vice president of sales at Mitel, and focus on the company's contact center business. He spent more than 13 years at ShoreTel in various sales roles, including most recently as head of the vertical markets team. Prior to ShoreTel, Krogman worked at Aspect Communications for several years in sales roles.

Maxta named Steven Velardi as vice president of worldwide sales, where he'll focus on leading the storage company's channel and sales efforts. He will report to Maxta CEO Yoram Novick. Velardi came to Maxta from Vello Systems, where he served as vice president of worldwide sales for the software-defined networking (SDN) firm. He also held vice president positions at Actona, PowerFile and Infineta Systems. In addition Velardi worked at EMC, Veritas and Cisco.

Antivirus software maker AVAST has a new channel chief. The company appointed Thierry Benchetrit as manager of channel sales for North America, where he'll focus on building the company's indirect sales. Benchetrit has more than 20 years of experience in software sales. He most recently served as director of North American channel sales at Avira GmbH. He also served in channel and business development roles at Panda Software and ESET.

Storage vendor Qualstar has a new chief financial officer. The company named Louann Negrete CFO, replacing Philip Varley, who resigned after a brief tenure with Qualstar. Prior to joining Qualstar, Negrete served as director of corporate accounting at Line 6, an electronic music equipment manufacturer. She also spent more than five years as corporate controller for BioSource International.

Frank Mlotkiewicz has joined software-defined networking startup Adara Networks as senior director of sales. Mlotkiewicz came to Adara from ADVA Optical Networking, where he served as senior director of sales for North American channels. He also served as regional sales director at Juniper Networks and held director of marketing development and vice president roles at Nortel Networks.

GridGain has a new CEO. The in-memory data platform company tapped Abe Kleinfeld as CEO. Kleinfeld most recently served as president and CEO of nCircle, a security vendor. He previously was CEO of Eloquent, a communications solutions company, and also co-founded Odesta Systems. Before that, Kleinfeld worked at Raytheon Data Systems, Wang Laboratories and Oracle.

Top networking solution provider Carousel Industries made two new hires last month. First, the company named Terence Fogarty as its new contact center solution consultant for strategic accounts. With more than 20 years of experience with contact center applications, Fogarty will focus on service delivery strategies and solutions development. He previously served as a customer experience solutions consultant at Avaya and also worked at Lucent.

Carousel also named IT industry veteran Bill Thompson as vice president of video services, where he'll lead the solution provider's managed video services business. Thompson most recently served as global head of video operations for the Americas at BT Conferencing, which he first joined in 2007. Prior to BT Conferencing, Thompson worked in networking engineering roles at Global Crossing for nearly a decade.

Violin Memory officially terminated Donald Basile's employment as CEO following a struggling initial public offering and quarterly results. The flash storage vendor named Howard Bain III, chairman of Violin's board of directors, as interim CEO. Basile joined Violin in 2009. Before Violin, he served as CEO and chairman of the board of Fusion-io. Prior to that, he worked as vice president of United Health Group.

Seth Bostock has taken over as CEO of IndependenceIT. Bostock was promoted last summer to the position of president and COO after working at the virtualization software maker for a number of years. Prior to that, he served as executive vice president of business development at IndependenceIT. Before joining the company in 2010, he worked as an independent consultant.

Global A/V solution provider Whitlock made several executive promotions in December, including naming Julian Phillips as its new co-executive vice president. Phillips joined the company three years ago as vice president of managed services. He previously served as managing director of Impact UK, an A/V solution provider based in Europe. Before that, he held senior management positions at Dell and Orange Business Solutions. He also was named to the board of directors at InfoCom International earlier this year.

Whitlock also named John "Jack" Steinhauer as co-executive vice president. Steinhauer joined the company in 2012 as vice president of sales. Before that, he served as regional sales director of Lifesize Communications for the West Americas. Steinhauer also held senior management roles at Avid Technology and Virtual Media Communications.

Whitlock's final promotion in December was for Chris Jamison, who was named to the newly created position of vice president of Information Technology and Service Delivery. Jamison first joined the company in 2012 as director of IT. Before that, he served as senior vice president and CTO of Alterra Capital Services, and also as assistant vice president of IT at United America Insurance Group.

Former Microsoft executive Bill Koefoed has joined Puppet Labs as the automation software maker's chief financial officer. Koefoed most recently served as the CFO of Microsoft's Skype Division. Before that, he was general manager of investor relations at Microsoft, and also served as general manager of finance and strategy for Microsoft IT. Koefoed also worked at Hewlett-Packard and PricewaterhouseCoopers Consulting.

Axcient tapped Mark Stockford as its new vice president of operations. Stockford will lead the cloud backup company's expansion of its global cloud infrastructure. Prior to Axcient, he served as vice president of operations at social game maker Zynga. Before that, he was the chief information officer at Ask.com and also spent five years at eBay in a variety of senior management roles.

Security vendor Promisec named John Sullivan to the role of vice president of worldwide sales, where he will handle the company's global sales and channel strategies. A 20-year IT veteran, Sullivan most recently served as COO of security vendor ElQnetworks. He also worked at Micro Focus, Segue Software and Pedestal Software in various sales roles.

Canadian systems integrator FlexITy Solutions appointed Darwin Funk to the new role of regional vice president of sales and operations. Funk will focus on expanding the company's unified communications, cloud and managed services business in Western Canada. He previously served as director of sales at OnX Enterprise Solutions, and also worked at EPIC Information Solutions and NorthWest Digital.

Meru Networks added Citrix executive Sudhakar Ramakrishna to its board of directors. Ramakrishna currently serves as senior vice president and general manager of Citrix's Enterprise and Service Provider Division. Before joining Citrix last year, he served as president of products and services at Polycom and also spent time as corporate vice president and general manager of Motorola's wireless broadband operations.