30 Notable IT Executive Moves: May 2014

Start It Off

May saw more than its share of executive moves, from management shakeups at SAP, Kaspersky Lab and X-IO; to surprising channel chief changes at CA Technologies, Fortinet and Cisco; to top management changes at Accenture and WatchGuard. Let's take a look.

Edison Peres

Cisco Systems surprised its channel ecosystem when it said Edison Peres was moving over to drive partner recruitment and enablement for the company's new cloud organization. Peres, whose new title is senior vice president of cloud and managed services, had served as the vendor's senior vice president of worldwide channels for more than a decade.

Peres' move was part of a broader organizational shake-up within Cisco aimed at driving its new InterCloud initiative, which was unveiled at the company's Global Partner Summit in April.

Guido Jouret

On the heels of Cisco's Peres announcement, Cisco confirmed the departure of Guido Jouret, a longtime Cisco executive who had been overseeing the company's new Internet of Things group since its launch last year. Cisco only said that Jouret was leaving to "pursue a new opportunity."

Cisco's Internet of Things organization is developing a range of products, such as ruggedized routers and embedded sensor software, targeting the Internet of Things market. Before taking over management of that organization Jouret was Cisco general manager and CTO of emerging technologies.

Jorge Benitez

Accenture said May 6 that Jorge Benitez would step down as the company's U.S. chief executive and senior managing director of North America and would retire from the company at the end of August. Accenture said that until his retirement Benitez would continue to be involved in key client relationships and represent the company in a number of business forums.

Benitez joined Accenture, then Andersen Consulting, in 1981 and spent more than 30 years with the company. He was promoted to his current position in 2011.

Stephen J. Rohleder

One day after announcing Benitez's pending retirement Accenture named Stephen Rohleder to the newly created post of group chief executive for North America, effectively taking over for Benitez. He will oversee Accenture's business in the U.S. and Canada, the company's biggest market.

Rohlder has been with Accenture for more than 30 years, most recently serving as group chief executive of the company's health and public service group since 2009. Before that he was Accenture's chief operating officer.

Rodolpho Cardenuto

Rodolpho Cardenuto was promoted May 7 to head up SAP's Global Partner Operations, a new organization created this month as part of a broader reorganization within the company.

Before the move to the channel Cardenuto, an SAP employee since 2008, was president of SAP Americas. Merk Ferrer, who had been managing the SAP Ecosystems and Channels organization, continues as chief operating officer of customer operations.

Vishal Sikka

Vishal Sikka, SAP's executive board member for products and innovation, unexpectedly stepped down ay 4 for what the company said was personal reasons. The announcement was a surprise given Sikka's pivotal role in the development of HANA, SAP's in-memory database and possibly its most critical technology going forward.

The company named Bernd Leukert to the executive board to oversee its global development organization.

Sikka's departure was among several high-level executive changes at SAP in early May following the previously announced departure of co-CEO Jim Hagemann Snabe, leaving Bill McDermott the company's sole CEO.

Jim Hagemann Snabe

Jim Hagemann Snabe stepped down as co-CEO of SAP on May 21, leaving Bill McDermott the company's sole CEO.

Snabe, who had been with SAP for more than 20 years, announced his intention to leave SAP in July 2013. At the time Snabe said he had decided that it was "time to begin the next phase of my career, closer to my family." SAP is based in Walldorf, Germany, while Snabe lives with his family in Copenhagen.

Shawn Price

Shawn Price, president of global cloud and line of business at SAP, stepped down from the job in early May with the company saying little about his departure.

Price's departure was among several high-level executive changes at SAP this month following the previously announced departure of co-CEO Jim Hagemann Snabe, leaving Bill McDermott the company's sole CEO.

Adam Famularo

Adam Famularo unexpectedly stepped down as CA Technologies' North America channel chief in early May after less than six months on the job. Sources told CRN that Famularo resigned after an apparent conflict over the strategic direction of the company's indirect channel efforts. He had been the driving force behind a "channel first" strategy across the enterprise software maker’s entire product line,

Famularo was a 16-year veteran of CA. Before taking on the senior vice president channel chief post, Famularo was senior vice president and general manager of CA's AppLogic business unit.

Stephen Orenberg

Word got out last month about a management shake-up at Kaspersky Lab that resulted in a number of executives leaving the company. A Reuters report said the managers left in mid-April because they disagreed with how Kaspersky Lab founder and CEO Eugene Kaspersky was running the company.

The departures included Stephen Orenberg, president of Kaspersky Lab's North America business and a 10-year company veteran. Reuters cited a company statement that said Orenberg's departure was over a "disagreement" about business strategy.

Nikolay Grebennikov

Nikolay Grebennikov is another Kaspersky Lab executive who recently left the company after a reported disagreement with founder and CEO Eugene Kaspersky about the company's direction. Grebennikov was the security software company's chief technology officer and head of research and development. He joined the company in 2003.

While Grebennikov left in April his departure, along with the resignations of Stephen Orenberg, Petr Merkulov and John Malatesta, just came to light in May.

Petr Merkulov

Petr Merkulov, along with Stephen Orenberg, Nikolay Grebennikov and John Malatesta, left Kaspersky Lab reportedly en masse after disagreements between the managers and founder and CEO Eugene Kaspersky about the company's direction.

Merkulov was Kaspersky Lab's North American executive vice president and a 10-year veteran of the company.

John Malatesta

John Malatesta, along with Orenberg, Grebennikov and Merkulov, left Kaspersky Lab reportedly after the executives had disagreements with founder and CEO Eugene Kaspersky about the company's direction.

Malatesta was global head of corporate marketing for the security software company.

Joe Wang

Joe Wang resigned as CEO of WatchGuard Technologies last month. The reason for his departure from the company wasn't disclosed, beyond a statement from channel chief Alex Thurber to CRN that Wang wanted to pursue other interests. Wang had led the Seattle-based network security technology vendor since 2007.

WatchGuard channel partners told CRN they were not concerned about the company's health or overall direction in the wake of Wang's sudden departure.

Michael Kohlsdorf

Michael Kohlsdorf was named interim CEO of WatchGuard Technologies last month following the unexpected resignation of CEO Joe Wang. Kohlsdorf is an executive with Francisco Partners, a private equity firm that holds a stake in the Seattle-based network security technology vendor.

WatchGuard's board of directors has begun hunting for a permanent replacement for Wang and a company spokesman said the search is expected to take about two months.

Edward Sharp

Former NetApp executive Edward Sharp was named CEO of Quorum, a fast-growing developer of disaster recovery technology that service providers use to offer Disaster Recovery-as-a-Service to their customers.

Sharp was a 15-year NetApp veteran and most recently was the company's vice president of emerging products. Sharp told CRN that his new job gives him a chance to participate in the industrywide move from a focus on data backup to an emphasis on ensuring disasters don't bring down a customer's business.

Margaret Dawson

Margaret Dawson, until this month Hewlett-Packard's cloud evangelist and product marketing vice president, left the company to become chief marketing officer at Rival IQ, a Seattle startup that's developing market monitoring and analytics software. Dawson had worked at HP since 2012 and became its cloud evangelist in February 2013.

Rival IQ CEO John Clark said Dawson began working for his company May 27 and an HP spokesperson confirmed Dawson's departure. Clark, in an interview with CRN, lauded Dawson as "a thought leader" in cloud computing, big data and analytics.

Garrett Jones

Channel sales veteran Garrett Jones was named vice president of sales at Spanning Cloud Apps, a developer of data backup and restore software for cloud applications. The company said Jones' appointment comes at a time when the Austin, Texas-based company is deepening its relationships with Google Apps resellers and Salesforce.com consultants.

Jones is charged with developing new elements of Spanning's multichannel sales operations, especially for the company's international sales efforts. Jones was previously vice president of global channel operations at Symantec, helping develop its global channel strategy and redesign its partner programs. Before that Jones worked at Dell.

Greg Douglas

Yorktel, a developer of unified communications and collaboration, cloud and video managed services, named Greg Douglas the company's executive vice president of sales in May.

Douglas had been serving as Yorktel's senior vice president of business development and channel partners since 2013. He also worked at Yorktel between 2004 to 2011 when he was the Eatontown, N.J.-based company's senior vice president of operations.

Colin Dixon

Brocade hired Colin Dixon, a well-known software-defined networking expert and open-source technology veteran, to be the networking technology company's new principal engineer.

Dixon is considered an authority on SDN, especially as it applies to scalable and distributed systems, according to Brocade. He comes from IBM where he worked as a research staff member in the company's Austin Lab since January 2012. Dixon is also known for his contributions to the OpenDaylight Project open-source effort to accelerate the adoption of SDN.

Brian Owen

Brian Owen was named president and CEO of X-IO, a Colorado Springs, Colo.-based developer of modular hybrid storage systems that combine flash storage and hard disk drives. The company cited Owen's experience as a business growth specialist with a track record in growing the value of companies through building distribution and VAR networks, and through strategic partnerships and alliances.

Owen was a general partner with Masthead Venture Partners. Prior to that he was CEO of MapInfo and helped take that company public, and before that held managerial posts at Computer Associates and Oracle.

John Beletic

John Beletic, who has been serving as CEO of storage technology manufacturer X-IO, became the company's chairman with the appointment of Brian Owen to the CEO post. Beletic had been CEO since November 2011.

Beleic is also a partner with the Oak Investment Partners venture capital firm.

David Gustavsson

Gustavsson, who until now was vice president of engineering at storage technology company X-IO, was promoted to chief operating officer. In his new post Gustavsson will oversee the company's engineering, technical marketing, manufacturing and support operations.

X-IO said Gustavsson has been specifically tasked with managing the company's engineering strategy, targeting the growing opportunities in virtualization and software-defined storage.

Gavin McLaughlin

Gavin McLaughlin was named vice president of worldwide marketing at storage technology company X-IO, one of a number of executive promotions at the company announced May 22.

McLaughlin was previously X-IO's solutions development director. In his new role McLaughlin will lead all outbound communications, including press and analyst relations, channel and field marketing, and strategic alliances. He has 27 years of technical, sales and marketing assistance expertise from earlier positions at EMC, Hewlett-Packard and Sun Microsystems.

Marie Hattar

Security technology developer Check Point Software Technologies appointed Marie Hattar to be the company's new chief marketing officer. Hattar will lead the company's brand and global marketing efforts, including product and solutions marketing, field marketing, corporate communications and partner marketing.

Hattar was previously a vice president at Cisco Systems where she led the company's enterprise networking and security product portfolios. Before that she worked at Nortel Networks, Alteon WebSystems and Shasta Networks in senior marketing and CTO positions.

Fred Pazos

Xangati, a provider of intelligent cloud and workload management technology, named Fred Pazos to be the company's new vice president of sales. Pazos is charged with scaling Xangati's go-to-market sales organization, including the San Jose, Calif., company's newly expanded Premier and Authorized Reseller programs.

Before joining Xangati Pazos was in charge of worldwide sales at Duo Security, and before that oversaw North America sales at Voltage Security.

Carolyn Crandall

Storage virtualization technology company Maxta tapped former Nimble Storage executive Carolyn Crandall in May to be the company's new vice president of marketing. Crandall will be responsible for the development, oversight and execution of Maxta's marketing strategy and growth initiatives.

Crandall was vice president of corporate and field marketing for hybrid storage technology company Nimble Storage. Before that she was vice president of worldwide marketing at Riverbed, and before that held positions at Seagate, Juniper Networks, Cisco Systems and National Semiconductor.

Martin Tidwell

Steton, the St. George, Utah-based developer of mobile and cloud applications for quality and performance management, promoted Martin Tidwell from CFO to president and CEO in May. He replaces founder and former president and CEO Steve Caplin who is now the company's chairman.

Tidwell joined Steton as CFO in the beginning of 2013. Before that he worked at Apple as finance director for the company's Asia-Pacific operation, based in Singapore. He previously held senior management positions at IBM, Sequent Computer Systems and Tektronix.

Mark Weiner

Centrify named Mark Weiner to be the company's new chief marketing officer last month. Weiner, who previously held positions at StorSimple, Virtela and Cisco Systems, is also joining the company's executive management team that reports to CEO Tom Kemp.

Centrify provides unified identity services across data center, cloud and mobile IT systems. The same day the company announced Weiner's appointment it also announced $42 million in financing from Samsung Ventures, Fortinet and NTT Docomo Capital.

Seth Henry

SmartShift Technologies appointed Seth Henry as CEO Americas, overseeing the company's North American operations. Henry previously worked at Arcadia Solutions and Watch Hill Partners.

SmartShift provides cloud migration services and automated enterprise optimization software.