30 Notable IT Executive Moves: March 2016

March Moves: Springing Into Spring

As 2016 moved into full swing, companies made their final early-year executive changes. March saw big executive departures at Lenovo, Verizon, Fortinet and Cisco, among others. The changes were intended to breathe new life into channel organizations and reorganize entire businesses -- and some of the moves even had partners up in arms. Companies also added executives: F5 Networks, Apple, AVG and SimpliVity made key appointments during the month. The new leaders have been charged with commitments such as driving higher sales, developing business development strategy and pushing a renewed commitment to partners. Take a look back at who was in, and who was out, for the month of March.

Emi lio Ghilardi

In the latest iteration in a series of management shuffles at Lenovo, the company, based in Beijing and Morrisville, N.C., named Emilio Ghilardi as president of Lenovo North America. He replaces Aymar de Lencquesaing, who took the role a little more than a year ago in another management overhaul. De Lencquesaing will now serve as chairman and president of Motorola Mobility and co-president of Lenovo's mobile division. Ghilardi joined Lenovo last July as vice president and chief operating officer, overseeing the company's PC and enterprise businesses.

Rick Osterloh

Also part of a major shuffle at Lenovo last month was the departure of Rick Osterloh, who had led Motorola Mobility. Osterloh had joined Lenovo with the company's late 2014 acquisition of Motorola Mobility, where he was an executive. The shift cements a change in Lenovo's Mobility Business Group, where tablets and smart TVs were moved to the company's PC Group. Replacing Osterloah is Aymar de Lencquesaing, who previously served as president of Lenovo North America.

Adam Famularo

Verizon Enterprise Solutions has lost popular channel chief Adam Famularo, announcing in March that he would be leaving the company April 1 to become CEO of a software company. The role is a lifetime personal goal for the executive, the company said. Famularo has held the vice president of global channels role at the Basking Ridge, N.J., company for the past 18 months. He is being succeeded by another channel favorite: Janet Schijns. A five-year veteran of the company and a longtime channel pro, Schijns most recently served as vice president of Verizon Enterprise Solutions. Partners said they were sad to see Famularo go, but that "Schijns is a respected and experienced leader in the channel and we are confident she can build on the success we are experiencing."

Peter Brant

In the first of two major executive departures at Fortinet in March, the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based network security vendor confirmed that enterprise sales chief Peter Brant had left the company. Brant had served as senior vice president of Americas enterprise sales. He has now taken a position at F5 Networks as senior vice president of North America sales. Brant's departure comes just a few months after Fortinet announced a reorganization of its sales force, which eliminated the U.S. enterprise team and redistributed it into two groups under a single, unified sales force.

Holly Rollo

Another executive departure last month for Fortinet was that of Chief Marketing Officer Holly Rollo. Fortinet confirmed that Rollo had resigned from the security vendor to pursue another opportunity and be located closer to her family. Sources told CRN that Rollo has taken a position at RSA. Partners said they were concerned about Rollo's departure, as marketing is a key strategic initiative for Fortinet to fill a gap in the company's go to market and they worried that Rollo's resignation might put that vision in jeopardy. Fortinet said its "commitment to marketing remains unchanged and continues to be a very high priority."

Kelly Ahuja

Near the end of the month, CEO Chuck Robbins unveiled a plan to reorganize Cisco's 25,000-member engineering unit into four teams, a move he said would help better align the company with customer needs. As part of that shift, San Jose, Calif.-based Cisco announced the departure of Kelly Ahuja, senior vice president of the service provider business, Products and Solutions. Over his 18-year tenure with the vendor, Ahuja helped develop and manage the company's service provider strategy and portfolio. Robbins said Ahuja had been "critical to our success." Yvette Kanouff, senior vice president and general manager of Cisco's Cloud Solutions, will now lead an expanded service provider organization, which includes the SP segment, SP cloud, mobility and SP video Software and Solutions organization, the company said.

David Helfer

F5 Networks, based in Seattle, made two big executive additions to its channel lineup in March. First, the application delivery networking vendor named David Helfer as its new vice president of worldwide channels. Helfer joins F5 from Lookout, where he was also vice president of worldwide channels. He has also held a variety of channel executive roles at Juniper. In his new role, Helfer will be responsible for the company's global channel strategies, partner engagement and the expansion of channel operations capabilities worldwide. Partners said Helfer's strong background in the channel is going to be a great fit for F5 and his appointment shows the company remains committed to investing in its partners.

Peter Brant

F5 Networks also named Peter Brant has senior vice president of North America sales. Brant, as previously mentioned on this executive roundup, joins the application delivery networking vendor from Fortinet, where he was senior vice president of Americas enterprise sales. In his new role, Brant will be responsible for building out the company's go-to-market strategies and day-to-day operations for sales in the region. Partners praised the additions, saying that it shows that F5 is continuing to invest in security and its channel partners. In particular, they said the appointment of Brant will continue to drive the growth they have seen in their commercial practices.

George Stathakopoulos

In the midst of the back and forth between Apple and the FBI in March over an encrypted iPhone, reports said the Cupertino, Calif.-based company named George Stathakopoulos as its new vice president of corporate information security. Stathakopoulos joined Apple from Amazon.com, where he served as vice president of information security. He will be responsible for helping the company protect its corporate assets used to design the company's products and software, the reports said.

Fred Gerritse

Amsterdam-based AVG stepped up its channel game last month, rolling out new products and partner program updates, and naming a new head of AVG Business. Fred Gerritse will now serve as senior vice president and general manager of AVG Business. He joins the security vendor from Cisco, where he most recently served as managing director of services, strategy and operations. Gerritse said he plans to leverage his channel background at Cisco to help AVG "transform the partner experience," pointing to recent updates as examples of the investments he plans to make in the role.

Larry Reinhold

Systemax, Port Washington, N.Y., revealed early in the month that it had named former CFO Larry Reinhold as its new CEO and president, an appointment that comes on the heels of falling sales, layoffs and the sale of its North American assets. Reinhold replaces Richard Leeds, who will now serve as executive chairman, the company said. Reinhold will continue in the CFO role on an interim basis.

"I am very proud of what we have accomplished and look forward to being part of the company's continued success," Leeds said in the statement. "Having worked with Larry [Reinhold] for nearly 10 years, I have the utmost confidence in his abilities."

Gary DePreta, Geoff Fancher

As competition heats up in the hyper-convergence market, SimpliVity has hired two new top sales executives from rival Cisco. The Westborough, Mass.-based startup named Gary DePreta as head of U.S. federal sales, sources told CRN, and Geoff Fancher as vice president of Americas channel sales. Both are longtime Cisco veterans, with DePreta most recently serving as director of the company's national security agencies business and Fancher leading the company's U.S. business at distributor Comstor.

Josh Leslie

Cumulus Networks, a Mountain View, Calif.-based company that has been a disrupter in the software-defined market, named Josh Leslie as its new CEO last month. Leslie had been leading the company's sales efforts since June as vice president of sales. He has also held executive sales positions at VMware and Coraid. He replaces founder and CEO JR Rivers, who assumes the role of chief technology officer, the company said. Partners said the open network solutions market is on the rise, and they view Leslie's appointment as a "good sign" about the future of the company.

Gary Testa

Star2Star trumpeted a major executive win in March as it named former Polycom executive Gary Testa as president and chief revenue officer. Both roles are new positions for the cloud-based unified communications company. Testa will be responsible for leading the Sarasota, Fla.-based company's sales strategy, expansion and go-to-market. He joins the company from Polycom, where he most recently served as global vice president of the company's Cloud and Service Providers Solutions Group. He has also held positions at IBM, Intelliden, Ditech Networks and Aurora Networks.

Kevin Rooney

Veeam Software, which develops data protection technology for cloud and virtualized environments, named Kevin Rooney as its new channel chief last month. Rooney will now serve as vice president of North America channel sales, responsible for driving channel sales strategy and growing the partner program for the Cleveland-based company. Rooney joins Veeam from VMware, where he managed the cloud partner organization for VMware's vCloud Air public cloud service. Before that, he spent six years at Hewlett-Packard, where he served as director of national partner sales for the company's enterprise business.

Optiv Security

Optiv Security kicked off the month with three big additions to its executive lineup. The $1.5 billion security solution provider named JD Sherry as vice president of cloud security; Stuart Solomon as vice president of strategy, innovation and research; and Larry Whiteside as vice president of health care and critical infrastructure. Solomon joined Denver-based Optiv from iSight Partners, where he was senior vice president, corporate development, legal and risk. Sherry joined Optiv from security startup Cavirin, where he was CEO. Finally, Whiteside joined Optiv from electricity company Lower Colorado River Authority, where he was CSO. The latter executive will be responsible for the launch of a vertical-focused practice for securing critical infrastructure.

Jeff Williams

After leaving FireEye earlier this year, Jeff Williams took a new position in March at Boston-based Bain Capital Ventures, where he now serves as an operating partner. Williams had previously served as senior vice president of sales at FireEye, a position he held for six years. At Bain, he will be focused on application and infrastructure software companies, who he will help develop go-to-market strategies, gain enterprise customers and sit on the board of directors. Before joining FireEye, Williams held positions at IntruVert Networks (acquired by McAfee) and IronPort Systems (acquired by Cisco). He has also sat on the board of directors of Meraki, OpenDNS and Adallom.

Dan Freund

InsideSales.com, a cloud-based predictive analytics software company based in Provo, Utah, nabbed former Oracle exec Dan Freund as its new senior vice president in charge of the company's commercial business unit. Freund had spent 16 years at Oracle, most recently as group vice president of OracleDirect NAS. In an interview with CRN, Freund said he was attracted to the opportunity to join a high-growth company on the path to an IPO. In his new role, Freund will be responsible for the company's sales and business development activities targeting small and midmarket businesses.

Tiffani Bova

Tiffani Bova revealed last month that she was jumping ship from research firm Gartner to join Salesforce.com as an evangelist for the company, under the title of global, customer growth and innovation evangelist. Bova is well-known in the industry for her more than 10 years at Gartner, where she presented at many events as vice president and distinguished analyst. Bova said in a blog post that she made the move to the San Francisco-based company help better evangelize sales and innovation, as well as for the company's philanthropic endeavors.

Beau Hutto

On March 15, Gurucul said it had added former Blue Coat Systems and Juniper Networks exec Beau Hutto as its new vice president of federal sales. Hutto joins the user behavior analytics and identity access intelligence company most recently from Blue Coat, where he was vice president for federal. He will be responsible for helping propel the Los Angeles-based company into the federal marketplace, the company said.

Andy Stafford

As one of three executive moves last month at Unisys, the solution provider, No. 19 on the CRN 2015 Solution Provider 500 list, named Andy Stafford as its new senior vice president of services. He replaces Neil Gissler, who was appointed to the position 11 months ago and led the reorganization of the services team. Stafford joined the Blue Bell, Pa.-based company from Accenture, where he senior managing director. Starting April 19, Stafford will be responsible for leading the company's global services delivery organization, which provides integrated solutions in security, cloud and infrastructure, applications and business process services.

I nder M. Singh

Unisys also appointed Inder M. Singh as senior vice president and chief marketing and strategy officer. He replaces Quincy Allen, who started with Unisys in 2012 and left the company last year, and will now lead the company's global marketing and communications organization, which includes investor relations. Singh joins Unisys from SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, where he was a managing director. He has also held positions at Comcast, Cisco, Lehman Bros., Prudential Financial and AT&T.

William Searcy III

Finally, Unisys appointed William Searcy III to lead a new practice for justice, law enforcement and border security. The new initiative includes the Unisys Law Enforcement Application Framework, the Library of Electronic ID Artifacts, the Unisys Secure Image Management Solution, the Unisys Automated Targeting System and the Unisys Border Security Integration Solution. Searcy joins the solution provider after retiring in 2015 from the FBI, where he served as deputy assistant director for the IT infrastructure division.

"Bill has a strong record understanding how information technology improves law enforcement at the international, national, state and local levels of government," Mark Forman, vice president and global head of Unisys' public sector business, said in a statement. "His insights will significantly benefit our clients around the world in addressing important initiatives such as digital policing and counter-terrorism."

Gene Kim, Jacinta Tobin

Twistlock, a virtual container security startup based in San Francisco, announced two new executive additions last month, naming Gene Kim as strategic adviser and Jacinta Tobin as chief revenue officer. Kim is co-founder and chief technology officer of Tripwire as well as an author and will be responsible for helping the company develop its product direction and strategy. Tobin joins the company after more than three years working with early-stage startups to develop sales, business development and marketing.

"The addition of Gene and Jacinta comes at an important moment as we expand our market presence and the breadth of our offerings to customers. We look forward to working with them both and [to] leverage their vast expertise to enable innovations and business success for our customers," Ben Bernstein, CEO of Twistlock, said in a statement at the time.

John Little

In its second executive move in March, AVG announced that CFO John Little would be leaving his position as soon as a successor could be found to fill the role. Little has been in the role for eight years, during which time he oversaw the company's growth and IPO. AVG said it has enlisted an executive search firm to find a replacement for Little.

Jeff Rogers

After announcing an international expansion and new distribution partners, endpoint detection and response startup Confer, Southborough, Mass., named Jeff Rogers as its new channel chief. As director of channels, Rogers will be responsible for helping Confer develop a strategy, program and growth for its partners. He joins Confer from HP, where he led a national channels team focused on enterprise security. He has also held positions at U.S. Robotics, 3Com, Nokia, Check Point and TippingPoint.

Brian Davies, Charlie Beckman

Exeter, R.I.-based Carousel Industries launched a new Cisco business practice last month and named two new executives to lead the charge. Brian Davies will now serve as vice president of Cisco operations and Charlie Beckman will now be senior director of Cisco engineering. Both additions are former Cisco executives, with Davies having spent more than 15 years in sales roles at Cisco and Avaya, and Beckman having spent 10 years at Cisco.

"As our customers' technology needs are rapidly evolving, a fundamental element of our strategy is to continue to strengthen and diversify our product and services offerings. This strategy is most crucial for us as a managed services and cloud solution provider," said Chief Revenue Officer James Marsh in a statement. "By bringing Brian and Charlie aboard -- both Cisco veterans and experts in their fields -- we are able to add incremental value to our customers using Cisco solutions.’

Brady Berg, Vina Leite

Next-generation endpoint security startup Cylance expanded its executive lineup in March, naming Brady Berg as general counsel and Vina Leite as chief people officer. Berg joins the Irvine, Calif.-based company from Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Pepeo, where he was a partner and co-chair specializing in corporate transactions. Leite joins Cylance from QLogic, where she was senior vice president and chief human resources officer. She has also held positions at EMC and RSA.

"I'm thrilled to have Brady and Vina join us as full-time members of the Cylance family," CEO Stuart McClure said in a statement at the time. "They are already valuable members of our team and their experience will help us scale quickly and grow Cylance into the indisputable market leader in endpoint security."

Matt Christopher

Unified communications network monitoring and management software company Nectar Services Corp. announced on March 16 that it had named Matt Christopher as vice president of customer experience. Christopher had most recently served as director of Microsoft enterprise programs at Nectar. Before joining the Jericho, N.Y.-based company, Christopher held sales and channel management roles supporting Microsoft, Avaya and Cisco. He will now be responsible for driving channel and sales operations.

Neil Stratz, Chad Bacher

Security vendor Webroot added to its executive lineup last month by naming Neil Stratz as senior vice president of worldwide business sales and Chad Bacher as senior vice president of product strategy and technology alliances. Stratz, who joins the company from Proofpoint, will be responsible for growing sales and partnerships around the company's managed service providers and channel partners. Bacher joins Webroot, Broomfield, Colo., from Malwarebytes and will be responsible for the company's product strategy.

"Webroot is expanding very quickly. Maintaining strong leadership is vital to accelerating the growth that will enable us to achieve our goals," said Dick Williams, CEO of Webroot, in a statement at the time. "Our success is dependent on our customers, our partners and our products, and I could not be more pleased with the leadership team we have assembled to drive excellence in each of those areas."