30 Notable IT Executive Moves: July 2017

Start It Off

While July 2017 may be remembered more for the executive move that didn't happen -- HPE CEO Meg Whitman didn't end up leaving the company for Uber -- there were still a number of major executive changes within the IT industry during the month. Those included comings and goings in the channel leadership at Verizon, SAP, Kaspersky Lab, NetApp and Veeam. Meanwhile, companies with changes at the C-level in July included Citrix Systems, Microsoft, FireEye and Juniper Networks.

In the following slides, check out our picks for the 30 most significant executive moves affecting the channel in July.

Janet Schijns

The channel chief at Verizon, Janet Schijns, departed the company in July to join Office Depot. Verizon veteran Joe Chuisano has succeeded her in the role.

Schijns, whose title had been executive vice president of solutions and sales channels, had served in the channel chief role since May 2016 and in Verizon's indirect sales organization for the past seven years. She has left to become Office Depot's senior vice president of services, copy, print and tech.

Chuisano, who has worked at Verizon for 23 years, will step in as North America Verizon Business Markets channel chief. Chuisano previously served as managing director of Verizon Business Markets.

David Henshall

Citrix Systems announced in July that Kirill Tatarinov is out as president and CEO, and the company's board has named David Henshall as the replacement. Henshall had been serving as the company's chief financial officer and chief operating officer.

The management changes follow "the mutual separation decision between the Citrix board and Kirill Tatarinov," the company said in a statement. Tatarinov, a former Microsoft executive, had served as Citrix's president and CEO since January 2016.

Henshall, who initially joined Citrix as vice president and CFO in 2003, had previously served as acting CEO and president Citrix, in 2013 and 2014. Prior to joining Citrix, he had held executive roles at companies including Rational Software, Cypress Semiconductor and Samsung.

Jason Stein

Kaspersky Lab named Jason Stein its new head of North American channels in July. He had joined earlier in the month as vice president of channel at Kaspersky Lab North America.

Stein filled the position formerly held by North American channel chief Leslie Bois, who left the company in December to head up Veracode's channel. The Kaspersky channel had been led in the interim by Senior Vice President for B2B Sales Michael Canavan.

Stein joined Kaspersky from Tier 4 Advisors, where he was vice president of channel. Prior to that, he held channel leadership roles at Effortless Office and PSI Network.

Kara Wilson

FireEye's chief marketing officer, Kara Wilson, departed the security vendor to become CMO at data protection technologies vendor Rubrik. Wilson's role at FireEye has been filled in the interim by Vice President of Global Communications Vitor DeSouza.

Wilson had led marketing at FireEye since September 2013, when she joined the company from Okta, where she was also CMO. Prior to that, she held the CMO position at SAP Cloud and Success Factors.

Wilson joins Rubrik as it prepares for a potential IPO. The company is currently at about the same stage in preparing for an IPO that FireEye was when she joined that company, Wilson told CRN.

Ken Gonzalez

In another executive departure from FireEye in July, Ken Gonzalez left his role at the company as senior vice president of corporate development and global alliances. He departed to serve as managing director at Trident Capital Cybersecurity, a San Mateo, Calif.-based venture firm.

Gonzalez had worked at FireEye since January 2013. He previously led corporate development at McAfee, prior to its acquisition by Intel. Gonzalez has also held top roles at Avast Software and Siebel Systems.

Eric Friedrichsen

SAP in July named a pair of Concur Technologies executives to oversee the global software vendor's SMB and channel ecosystem operations in North America.

Eric Friedrichsen is now the head of SAP North America's small and midsize business and channel segment, while Marc Monday is head of SAP North America's channel ecosystem.

Friedrichsen previously ran the SMB business at Concur Technologies, the business and travel expense management software company that SAP acquired in 2014. He succeeds Scott Jones, who left SAP in January.

Monday takes over for Annie Neubrech, who moved into a global position at SAP earlier this year. At Concur, he had led global business development efforts for the SMB segment. Monday will report to Friedrichsen, SAP said.

Jade Surrette

Jade Surrette, a 20-year solution provider marketing veteran, has joined CRN parent The Channel Company as vice president of PartnerDemand Services.

Surrette, who for the past seven years has been senior director of marketing for Connection, No. 22 on 2017 CRN Solution Provider 500, joins a growing team focused on helping solution providers generate sales leads through digital marketing.

At Merrimack, N.H.-based Connection, Surrette was responsible for generating sales leads, extending brand reach and driving overall revenue growth for the $2.7 billion solution provider.

In her new role at The Channel Company, Surrette said she will be focused on expanding relationships with vendors and solution providers, enhancing and evolving the PartnerDemand Services portfolio, and optimizing partner performance.

Jessica Couto

IntSights, developer of a platform for cybersecurity intelligence, has landed longtime channel executive Jessica Couto as its first head of worldwide channels.

Previously, Couto had helped multiple security companies -- including Carbonite, Bit9 (now Carbon Black), Kaspersky Lab and, most recently, Hexadite -- build out their partner programs.

Following the acquisition of Hexadite by Microsoft, most of the company's staff -- including Couto -- were cut. Couto hadn't been with Hexadite long, joining as vice president of channel in April to launch its partner program and build out its channel strategy.

Jeff McCullough

NetApp has hired Jeff McCullough, who has worked for NetApp rivals Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Quest Software, as the new vice president of its Americas partner sales organization. He takes over for Scott Strubel, who retired from NetApp in March.

McCullough spent a total of 22 years with Compaq, Hewlett-Packard and HPE, and left HPE in 2016 as vice president of channel strategy and SMB sales. He then spent a year as vice president of channel sales and alliances at Quest Software before joining NetApp.

Steve Luczo

Seagate CEO Steve Luczo is stepping away from his leadership role to make way for a new chief executive. The company's board of directors said it would appoint company President and Chief Operating Officer Dave Mosely as CEO starting Oct. 1.

Luczo will become executive chairman at that time, a role where he is expected to focus on longer-term shareholder value creation, the company said.

Luczo has served as Seagate CEO for two stretches, most recently since 2009. Previously he had been CEO of the company between 1998 and 2004.

Mosely has served as Seagate's president since 2013, and before that had been executive vice president for operations at the company since 2011.

Jim DuBois

In connection with Microsoft's latest reorganization, Chief Information Officer Jim DuBois departed the company in July. DuBois opted to not return from a sabbatical as planned.

DuBois had worked for Microsoft since 1993, and held a number of positions over the ensuing two decades, working his way up to being named CIO in May 2013.

Succeeding DuBois is Kurt DelBene, another Microsoft veteran. DelBene, whose title will be chief digital officer rather than CIO, spent two decades at Microsoft before departing in 2013 for a top role overseeing Healthcare.gov. He came back to Microsoft in early 2015 as executive vice president for corporate strategy and planning.

Brian Bakstran

Veeam has poached channel veteran Brian Bakstran from NetApp to be its vice president of Americas marketing. He had previously worked at NetApp in the position of vice president of global field and channel marketing.

The hiring of Bakstran coincides with Veeam naming James Mundle, a veteran of companies including HPE, as vice president of worldwide channel programs.

Bakstran spent seven years with NetApp, with other positions including chief marketing officer and vice president of North America marketing. Before NetApp, Bakstran spent nearly five years in various executive marketing roles at CA Technologies.

Bikash Koley

Juniper Networks announced it is hiring one of Google's top engineers, Bikash Koley, as its new chief technology officer.

Koley is set to start at Juniper in August, and has been serving as the head of network architecture, engineering and planning at Google. Koley built and operated Google's production network infrastructure -- spanning the data center, backbone, optical and content edge, according to Juniper.

The hire comes after Juniper founder and CTO, Pradeep Sindhu, said he would reduce his role at the company to focus on Fungible, a startup he co-founded in 2015.

Prior to Google, Koley was the co-founder and CTO of Qstreams Networks. He also spent several years at Ciena in various technical roles.

Anthony D'Ambrosi

Axispoint Technology Solutions Group announced that veteran technology executive Anthony D'Ambrosi has been named president. The current president and CEO, company founder Frank Scanga, will remain in the CEO role.

The company, No. 397 on the 2017 CRN Solution Provider 500, said it will also be using ATSG as its name going forward.

Most recently, D'Ambrosi served as president of Bell Techlogix -- No. 210 on the 2017 CRN Solution Provider 500 -- from 2012 until the fall of 2016.

Matt Nachtrab

In July, data protection firm eFolder promoted Matt Nachtrab to CEO from his position of chief strategy officer and chief revenue officer. Then, after announcing that eFolder and disaster recovery firm Axcient have merged, Nachtrab was named CEO of the combined company.

In his initial promotion, Nachtrab took the reins from eFolder co-founder Kevin Hoffman, who had been holding a joint CEO/CTO position at the company. Hoffman remains as CTO of the combined company.

Prior to eFolder, Nachtrab founded Nemsys and LabTech Software, the latter of which merged with ConnectWise in 2015. He had served as president and chief operating officer of ConnectWise following the merger, before joining eFolder in February.

Rakesh Khanna

Syntel announced the appointment of Rakesh Khanna, who had been serving as interim CEO since November, as its permanent president and CEO. Khanna had served as the chief operating officer of Syntel since January 2012, and has been with the company since 2005.

In November, Syntel, No. 38 on the 2017 CRN Solution Provider 500, announced that President and CEO Nitin Rakesh had stepped down after 30 months in his position.

Waheed Choudhry

Former Dimension Data North America President Waheed Choudhry has landed a job overseeing operations for solution provider Presidio's 11-state Western region.

Choudhry joined New York-based Presidio, No. 21 on the 2017 CRN Solution Provider 500, in July. He left Dimension Data in January as part of an exodus of high-ranking executives from the Johannesburg, South Africa-based company, No. 10 on this year's Solution Provider 500.

Choudhry had been with Dimension Data since the company's April 2014 acquisition of Valencia, Calif.-based Nexus. He had joined Nexus in 2004 as a regional sales manager and worked his way up to the president and COO role.

Terry Richardson

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Channel Chief Terry Richardson has added U.S. distribution to his duties in the wake of an executive departure at the company. Richardson is taking on the duties of HPE Vice President of U.S. Distribution Bob Johnson, who has left the company.

As vice president of U.S. channel sales for HPE, Richardson will now oversee the company's enterprise partner business across the country, as well as HPE's U.S. distribution business. In an interview with CRN, Richardson said he sees the additional duties as an opportunity to "strengthen" the ties between partners and distributors.

Matthew Polly

Endpoint detection and response vendor Crowdstrike has appointed former AppDynamics executive Matthew Polly to lead its global channels, alliances and business development.

Polly had previously served as vice president, worldwide alliances and business development, at AppDynamics. His move comes five months after the $3.7 billion acquisition of AppDynamics by Cisco.

Polly will serve as vice president, worldwide business development, alliance, and channels at Crowdstrike. He assumes some of the duties of Upesh Patel, who had previously led business development but left in March to take a role at Aqua Security.

Adam Slutskin

ConnectWise Chief Revenue Officer Adam Slutskin has left the company, saying he wishes to spend time with family as he begins exploring what to do next.

He joined the IT service management vendor as director of sales and business development in May 2009, and was promoted to chief revenue officer in June 2015.

ConnectWise CEO Arnie Bellini said he would function as ConnectWise's combined CEO and CRO for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, Steve Farnan -- an eight-year ConnectWise veteran – has been promoted from vice president of sales to senior vice president of sales.

Christine Landry

Business process services provider Conduent, which split off from Xerox on Jan. 1, announced two executive appointments in its commercial division in July.

Christine Landry will serve as group chief executive for consumer and industrials. She previously held the role of general manager for Conduent's communications and media business unit. Prior to splitting off from Xerox, Landry was group president for the communications industry vertical of Xerox Services.

In addition, Pratap Sarker has been named group chief executive for financial services and health care. Sarker comes to Conduent from Accenture, where he headed up technology services for Accenture's financial services sector.

Michael Perone

Barracuda Networks co-founder Michael Perone, who had been serving as the company's chief marketing officer and executive vice president, has stepped down. He will remain on Barracuda's board of directors and "will continue to assist with strategic and emerging technology investments and opportunities," the company said. Perone has left to focus on 345 Partners, a venture fund that he co-founded.

Erin Hintz, formerly the chief marketing officer of Urban Airship, has joined Barracuda as CMO and senior vice president. Earlier, she served as vice president and general manager of global marketing and e-commerce for Citrix's SaaS unit.

Yassir Abousselham

Okta has hired cybersecurity veteran Yassir Abousselham as its chief security officer. Most recently, he had been the chief information security officer at SoFi, and before that he launched and developed Google's corporate data security and payments security programs. Earlier, he spent more than a decade in security and compliance consulting at Ernst & Young.

Christine Leahy

CDW announced two executive promotions in July. Christine Leahy has been named to a newly created position, chief revenue officer. She had most recently been serving as senior vice president for international and chief legal officer, and had initially joined CDW in 2002 as general counsel.

The company also said that Christina Corley has been appointed to an expanded role, of senior vice president for commercial and international markets. She will report to Leahy. Corley had joined CDW in 2011 as senior vice president for corporate sales.

Amy Fliegelman Olli

VMware has appointed Amy Fliegelman Olli, formerly of Avaya, as senior vice president and general counsel, heading the company's global legal team. She'll start in the position on Aug. 28.

At Avaya, Olli also had held the position of senior vice president and general counsel, and previously filled a similar role at CA Technologies as well. Earlier, she had worked for IBM.

Gregory Touhill

Cyxtera Technologies in July announced the appointment of Brigadier General Gregory Touhill as president of a newly formed division focused on federal agencies, the Cyxtera Federal Group.

Cyxtera formed in May through the combination of CenturyLink's portfolio of data centers and co-location businesses and Medina Capital’s security and data analytics portfolio.

Touhill is a retired U.S. Air Force officer who was appointed as the first Federal Chief Information Security Officer of the U.S. in 2016.

Layne Levine

Windstream in July named telecom veteran Layne Levine as president of its enterprise business division.

Levine had most recently spent five years as chief revenue officer at GTT, and before that served as the executive vice president for GTT's Americas unit. Earlier, he held executive positions including at Alpheus Communications, Deltacom/EarthLink, Airband Communications and Level 3 Communications.

Steve Conner

On-premises cloud technologies vendor Cloudistics announced three executive appointments in July. Steve Conner, formerly a director at Nutanix, has joined the company as vice president of worldwide sales. David Friend, a principal at Bain Capital Ventures, has joined Cloudistics as chief financial officer. And Joseph McNulty, previously a general manager at Neustar, has been named vice president of manufacturing, customer support and IT.

"We are experiencing hypergrowth, and it's imperative that we continue to build our leadership team with world-class talent that focus on customer value. Steve, David and Joe bring a strong track record of success with MSPs and enterprise customers," said Cloudistics founder and CEO Najaf Husain in a news release.

Nick Puetz

Digital threat management technology vendor RiskIQ announced the appointment of three new executives in July.

Nick Puetz, formerly of Optiv, joins RiskIQ as vice president of customer success, while RiskIQ veteran Jenna Raby has been appointed to serve as vice president of Asia-Pacific and Canada.

Clarence Cheuk, who's headed the company's legal department for nearly three years, has been named vice president and general counsel. Cheuk will also co-lead the firm's recruiting and human resources teams.

Talia Schmidt

IT automation platform provider Atera announced it has hired Talia Schmidt, formerly of SafeDK, as vice president of marketing.

Schmidt had served as director of global markets at SafeDK, provider of a mobile SDKs management solution. Before that she worked at ad tech firm adCore, where she ultimately served as chief revenue officer.