30 Notable IT Executive Moves: October 2014

Start It Off

October didn't bring a chill for executive hiring. With a focus on security officers, CEOs and sales leaders, VARs and vendors alike added to their executive lineups this month. Take a look at 30 of the biggest moves.

Zane Rowe

At the beginning of the month, EMC said it appointed a top-level Apple exec as its new CFO. Zane Rowe will now serve as executive vice president and CFO at EMC, reporting directly to CEO Joe Tucci. The hire is yet another sign that the storage vendor is moving away from legacy roots and embracing an upstart feel. In addition to experience as Apple's head of North American sales, Rowe brings CFO experience from United Continental Holdings and Continental Airlines.

Brian Gallagher

In big news for the storage vendor late in October, EMC announced it was reorganizing and formed a new business unit focused on cloud management and orchestration. Brian Gallagher, president of the Enterprise and Mid-range Systems group, will be leading the new effort as president of cloud management and orchestration. In his new role, Gallagher will be focused on helping customers work in the cloud independent of the underlying technology.

Adrian Jones

As Symantec announced that it would be joining the parade of tech companies splitting in two, it named Adrian Jones to lead global security sales. The former Hewlett-Packard channel chief joined Symantec in June as senior vice president for its Asia-Pacific and Japan region. He spent seven years at HP and more recently was managing director and SVP of sales in Asia-Pacific at Oracle. Until the company officially splits at the end of 2015, Jones will hold the title of global senior vice president of sales.

Brett Shirk

As Symantec announced it would be splitting in two this month, the company said Brett Shirk would be leading global sales for the information management company spinoff. Shirk has been at Symantec for more than 12 years, most recently as senior vice president of North America. In that role, he helped develop the business and customers in commercial, enterprise public sector and consumer markets. Shirk will hold the title of global senior vice president of sales until the company's split is finalized, which is expected in late 2015.

Sandar Pichai

Google's Sandar Pichai was promoted this month to chief of all of Google's core products as part of a material reorganization within the company. Previous, Pichai ran Google's Android, Chrome and Google Apps businesses. He will now add research, search engine, advertising and social to his responsibilities. Partners cheered the move, saying it bodes well for the company's channel.

Karl Meulema

Riverbed has turned to former Cisco and Avaya executive Karl Meulema as the company's new senior vice president of global channels. Meulema replaces Randy Schirman, who left in September for WAN virtualization startup Talari Networks. In his new role, Meulema will be responsible for enabling partners to sell the Riverbed portfolio, especially as the company is looking to broaden its product variety. Meulema is best known in the channel for his 11 years in channels at Cisco, but most recently served as vice president of global services and partners at Avaya.

Brian Kelly

Brian Kelly has been brought on as the chief security officer at Rackspace. Kelly brings more than three decades of experience in security to his new role, including most recently as executive director of Ernst and Young's security and forensics programs. He has also held roles at iDefense, Deloitte & Touche and as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force. In his new role, Kelly will be responsible for overseeing the cyber security of computing clusters and physical security of the company's data centers.

Ed Coleman

Unisys CEO Ed Coleman will be leaving the company as of Dec. 1, the solution provider announced this month. The news came on the heels of multiple quarters of dropping revenues and earnings for the solution provider, which is No. 17 on CRN's SP500 list. Unisys said that Coleman was not fired and it was just the "right time" for a change and it was an "amicable parting." Coleman has been with Unisys since 2008. He has also served as CEO of CompuCom and Gateway Computer. A successor for Coleman has not been named, but Unisys said they are actively looking for a replacement.

Mike Parise

As part of its efforts to grow sales of its enterprise-level platform in the U.S., Kaspersky Lab has hired another sales executive for B2B sales. Mike Parise will be joining the company as senior vice president of corporate sales, the company said early this month. Parise comes to Kaspersky most recently from Core Security, where he was vice president of North American field sales. He also has experience from positions at Courion, Parametric Technology, EMC and Data General. In an interview with CRN at the time, Parise said he was looking forward to joining the momentum he sees at Kaspersky in manufacturing, healthcare and more.

Guido Appenzeller

As VMware continues to pick up software-defined networking executives for NSX, the latest addition comes from Big Switch Networks. Guido Appenzeller joined VMware early this month as chief technology strategy officer of its networking and security business unit. Appenzeller most recently served as CEO of Big Switch Networks, but has also held positions at Stanford University and Voltage Security.

Mike Humke

Mike Humke, U.S. executive director of vertical markets, left Ingram Micro earlier this month to pursue consulting opportunities. Humke was largely credited with helping drive major growth for the distributor in vertical markets in his four years with the company, including growing the healthcare business to almost $1 billion and the addition of a GSA contract.

"I left at a great time with Ingram. Things are going great. I absolutely loved it," Humke told CRN at the time. "I just made the decision that it's time to do what Mike wants to do -- go deeper with the partners and go deeper with the vendors."

Doug Erickson

Doug Erickson has left Juniper to lead channels at Pulse Secure, the mobile security company based on Juniper spinoff Junos Pulse. Erickson was most recently vice president of worldwide partner programs and development at Juniper. His title at Pulse Secure will be vice president of partner sales and he will be in charge of leading channels for the roughly 1,800 Junos Pulse partners that the company hopes to bring into a Pulse Secure partner program.

Joshua McKenty

OpenStack Pioneer Joshua McKenty has taken a position as field CTO at Pivotal, a move he told CRN was "movin' on up the stack." McKenty is well known in the OpenStack world for his roles in building an open-source cloud orchestration solution at NASA, sitting on the OpenStack board of directors and most recently as founder and CTO of Piston Cloud. Despite leaving the company, McKenty will remain on the board of directors of Piston Cloud and still be active on sales accounts.

Amit Yoran

At the end of the month, RSA, the security division of EMC, named Amit Yoran its new president. Yoran most recently was RSA's senior vice president of products, where he was widely credited with driving the company forward in enterprise security challenges, including intelligence-driven security. Yoran is a major figure in the security industry, with more than 20 years of security expertise. He has held positions as CEO of NetWitness, Riptech and Symantec, as well as with the U.S. Computer Emergency Response Team and the U.S. Department of Defense's CERT program.

Jeffrey Davies

Forsythe has brought on Jeffrey Davies as senior vice president and CIO for the solution provider, which is No. 32 on CRN's SP500 list. Davies comes most recently from OfficeMax, where he was vice president of IT for the company's Contract B2B business unit. He has also held positions at Sears Holdings, The Revere Group, Lante Corporation and Accenture. In his new role, Davies will be charged with using his more than 20 years of experience to manage the company's IT organization and grow the business.

Steve Scribner

Cofton, Md.-based federal solution provider Force 3 appointed Steve Scribner as CFO. Scribner joined Force 3 in 2012, when he was vice president of accounting and finance, but most recently served as vice president and CFO at Cummins-Wagner. In his new role, Scribner will be in charge of building the company's financial strategy.

Diane Wilfong

Diane Wilfong has been named vice president, controller and principal accounting officer at CSC, which is No. 4 on CRN's SP500 list. Wilfong replaces Michael Sweeney, who had been in the interim role since Sept. 16. Wilfong comes to the solution provider from Caesars Entertainment, where she helped lead a major financial transformation initiative and IPO. Prior to that, she held positions at Eastman Kodak Company, Corning and Pricewaterhouse Coopers.

Rich Pirrotta

Logicalis, No. 26 on CRN's SP500 list, brought on a new CFO in October with the appointment of Rich Pirrotta. The company highlighted his international experience and expertise in finance and operations as driving factors for his hire.

’We couldn’t be happier that Rich Pirrotta has joined Logicalis,’ says Logicalis U.S. CEO Vince DeLuca. ’His experience and leadership will be extremely valuable as Logicalis continues to transform our business model and develop new solutions based on the major market transitions underway.

Daniel Valverde

To help continue to accelerate the distributor's growth in the region, Ingram Micro appointed Daniel Valverde as the new director for its advanced solutions business in the region. Valverde will be charged with driving revenue growth and strategy for the region's advanced solutions business, which includes data-center enablement, virtualization, security and more.

Paul Balkwell

As the company opened a new European headquarters in the Thames Valley region of England, Continuum has brought on Paul Balkwell as European sales director to lead the region. Balkwell will help drive revenue for both current and future MSP partners in the region. Balkwell has more than 22 years of experience in the industry, most recently as director and U.K. general manager of Micropoint Managed Services, an MSP in the region.

Chris Paul

In another executive addition for Continuum, the managed IT services solutions company has brought on Chris Paul as CTO and vice president of engineering. In his new role, Paul will help grow Continuum's portfolio and improve its performance for its over 3,500 MSP partners. Paul brings many years of experience to his new role and was most recently vice president of engineering at InsightSquared. He's also clocked time at Blueleaf, Visible Measures, NameMedia and Brainshark among other companies.

Garret Grajek

Cloud services provider dinCloud has filled its chief security officer role with Garret Grajek, someone the company called a "security visionary." Grajek has more than 30 years of experience in security, including multiple security patents and projects for major accounts across commercial and federal agencies. In his new role, Grajek will be responsible for securing the company's infrastructure, insuring regulatory compliance and keeping the cloud secure for a growing client base.

Pete Bell

Internap has named Pete Bell senior vice president of global sales to continue a trajectory of growth, especially in its data center services business. Bell has more than 25 years of sales experience, most recently as vice president and general manager of global solutions at NTT Communications.

’Over the past year, we’ve steadily retooled the sales organization to enhance hosting expertise and align with this strategic shift,’ said Eric Cooney, president and CEO at Internap, in a statement. ’Pete’s established track-record of motivating global sales teams to drive growth makes him the ideal leader to head up the organization and build on our strong performance and momentum.’

Steve Bonilla, Peter Labes, Eric Jewett

Office 365 migration company SkyKick added three new executives to its line up to enable it to continue its rapid growth trajectory. The Seattle, Wash.-based company added Steve Bonilla as COO, Peter Labes as vice president of business development and Eric Jewett as vice president of international. The executives were brought on to help SkyKick keep up with growing demand for its migration suites around the globe.

Doug Schneider

One of Amazon's largest channel partners has brought on new CEO Doug Schneider. Liberty Lake, Wash.-based 2nd Watch has been on a rapid growth trajectory, with over 600 percent sales growth and $10 million in venture capital to put towards sales, marketing, product development and geographic expansion. Schneider steps in for co-founder Kris Bliesner, who will now be CTO. Schneider's most recent experience includes CEO roles at Transaction Wireless, All Call and Genea.

Mark Ritchie

San Jose, Calif.-based systems integrator AdvanTel Networks promoted its federal sales director Mark Ritchie to vice president of federal systems. The news comes as AdvanTel Networks looks to continue its revenue growth and profitability in its federal business, something Ritchie has been involved with since 2009. Prior to joining AdvanTel Networks, Ritchie has more than 22 years of experience in the federal market.

Shawn McGowan

Data integration company Scribe Software has a new CEO. The Manchester, N.H.-based company said at the end of October that Shawn McGowan would take the reins at the company to help continue rapid growth and product innovation. McGowan has more than 20 years of industry experience, including time spent at Newmarket International, ManagedOps.com, Elderhostel and The Taylor Group.

Sanjay Mehta

Network performance management company ThousandEyes added Sanjay Mehta as CMO. Mehta comes to ThousandEyes from Splunk, an operational intelligence software company, where he was vice president of product marketing and helped the company grow from $10 million to more than $300 million in revenue. In his new role, he will be responsible for all aspects of marketing, including strategy and execution.

Ari Schur

KeyedIn Solutions has a new channel chief for its SaaS-based software solutions for configurable clouds business. Ari Schur will now be vice president of channel and alliance programs for the company. The channel has proved key to KeyedIn as it entered new markets, and Schur will be charged with continuing to lead the company's channel growth. To his new role, Schur brings channel experience from SAP, Microsoft, Born Consulting Services and Kronos Systems.

Ruud van Noort

Specialty software distributor Lifeboat Distribution boosted its European business this month with the addition of Ruud van Noort as managing director, Lifeboat Distribution Europe. In his new role, van Noort will help lead sales in Europe as well as help expand the distributor into EMEA. Van Noort is no stranger to the channel, helping found Logicsoft, the only software-only corporate reseller in the Netherlands.