30 Notable IT Executive Moves: September 2015

Set If Off

After a few busy months that saw constant changes in executives at vendors and solution providers alike, September was a bit of a breather for executive departures in the industry. However, that doesn't mean that there weren't some companies snapping up big names from their competitors or seeing top influential executives leaving their ranks. Last month saw executive changes at Cisco, HP, Citrix, Dell and more, as well as at startups and solution provider partners.

Take a look back at who was in and who was out in the month of September.

Surinder Brar

September was yet another month of executive departures for Cisco, with the networking giant losing longtime channel executive Surinder Brar, who most recently served as chief of partner strategy for the company's Cloud and Managed Services Organization. Known as one of the key drivers in developing Cisco's channel programs over the past 15 years, Brar served as chief strategy officer for the Worldwide Partner Organization from 2010 to 2014, and before that held a variety of positions in channel strategy and partner program development. Brar said it was the "right time to move on" for him as the reason for his departure. Cisco has not named a replacement.

Rob Lloyd

After leaving Cisco two months ago, former President Rob Lloyd has landed at futuristic startup Hyperloop Technologies, which is looking to rethink the transportation industry. Lloyd spent 20 years at Cisco before announcing his departure in June, shortly after the networking giant named Chuck Robbins as CEO (a role for which Lloyd had reportedly been a frontrunner).

"There are so many parallels to the lessons I learned from my time at Cisco that are applicable to what we will be accomplishing together at Hyperloop. … Hyperloop just feels like the perfect fit for me personally," Lloyd said in a blog post about the move.

Kerry Bailey

Hewlett-Packard ramped up its channel push into the cloud last month, naming former Terremark CEO Kerry Bailey as its new channel chief. Bailey replaces Sue Barsamian, whom HP appointed to lead its security software business in August. Bailey joined HP in 2013 after six years at Verizon (during two of which he was CEO of Terremark). At HP, he most recently served as senior vice president of HP Cloud. Partners praised Bailey's ability to help partners transform their business models and drive demand for cloud solutions, saying he was the "right guy at the right time" for the channel chief role.

Kimberly Martin

Citrix named seasoned channel veteran Kimberly Martin as its new channel chief in September. The announcement comes as the software company undergoes a major transformation, led in part by pressure from activist investor Elliott Management Group. As vice president of partner strategy and sales, Martin will be responsible for evolving the company's partner strategy, addressing needs and driving value for partners, the company said. She replaces Tom Flink, who took on an international sales role, and will report to Carlos Sartorius, who runs all global sales and services.

Michelle Dennedy

Cisco is putting a bigger emphasis on data privacy, appointing Michelle Dennedy as vice president and chief privacy officer Sept. 22. In a role that is "central to Cisco's vision and strategy," according to a blog post, Dennedy will be responsible for driving thought leadership and guiding the networking giant on product and service development. Dennedy comes to Cisco from Intel Security, where she served as chief privacy officer. She has also held positions at Oracle and Sun Microsystems.

Art Gilliland

Last month, former HP executive Art Gilliland was named the new CEO of Skyport Systems, a startup that just emerged from stealth with hyper-secure server technology. At HP, Gilliland served as vice president of enterprise security products from 2012 to July 2015. Before that, he was senior vice president of the Information Security Group at Symantec. Skyport already has 10 partners signed up, some of which told CRN that they thought Gilliland's leadership will only deepen the startup's already positive relationship with the channel.

Jay Parker

Dell snagged another high-profile executive to add to its lineup in September, adding Jay Parker, former vice president of Lenovo's Enterprise Business as vice president and general manager, North America enterprise solutions. He joins Lenovo's Rory Read, Cisco's Paul Perez and HP's Tom Joyce, all of whom joined the company in the past few months. Parker replaces Curtis Hutcheson, who was moved two months ago to serve as vice president and general manager of Dell Security Solutions. Parker isn't new to Dell, holding roles at the company for more than a decade before jumping to Lenovo in 2007.

Tom Shell

Lenovo was quick to replace its departing Vice President of Enterprise Business Jay Parker (who left the company for Dell in September), naming company veteran Tom Shell to the role. Before taking the role, Shell led Lenovo's PC Business Group. He has been with the company since 2006.

John Davis

Palo Alto Networks brought in some serious expertise to its public sector business, naming retired U.S. Army Major General John Davis as federal chief security officer in September. Davis will be responsible for helping grow Palo Alto Networks' public sector business as well as work to help develop strategies for governments around the world to increase their security postures. Davis most recently served as senior military adviser for cyber to the undersecretary of Defense for policy until leaving the Pentagon in May. He has also held many other public sector positions dealing with military, cybersecurity and operations.

Iain Lobban

In another public sector addition for the security vendor, Palo Alto Networks named Iain Lobban to its public sector advisory council. Lobban will help the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company expand its public sector cybersecurity initiatives and help international governments address their security challenges. Lobban has held multiple notable positions, including director of the British Government Communications Headquarters from 2008 to 2014.

"I'm really looking forward to working with the world class leadership team at Palo Alto Networks and delighted to join the terrific experts who make up their Public Sector Advisory Council. I believe the Council's experience and perspectives can bring something unique to the dialogue around cybersecurity strategy and policy worldwide," Lobban said in a statement at the time.

Frederick Henry

As Unisys continues to invest in its public sector business, the solution provider hired retired Army Brig. Gen. Frederick Henry to lead its business with the Defense Information Systems Agency -- a key role, Unisys said, because business with that agency represents a significant portion of its Defense Department business. In his new role, Henry will be responsible for leading Unisys' involvement with technology upgrades as well as the strategy going forward for the agency -- where Henry formerly served. In addition to his experience there, Henry brings extensive public sector experience to his new role including work for the Army Network Enterprise Technology Command.

Michael Fuhrman

IT infrastructure and cloud provider Peak 10 made a big executive addition last month, naming former Cisco executive Michael Fuhrman as its new chief technology officer. Fuhrman in April left Cisco, where he most recently served as vice president, security services and cloud operations. At Cisco since 1998, Fuhrman helped lead the delivery of cloud services and drive the transition from a hardware delivery model to a software delivery model, according to a news release. In his new role, Fuhrman will be responsible for the company's product and services strategy.

"Mike's track record of growing and delivering cloud and security services, bringing new products and solutions to market, and success with M&A integration will serve Peak 10 well as we take the next steps to grow our company and further improve on our customers' experience," David Jones, chairman and CEO of Peak 10, said in a statement.

Julie Parrish

CRN reported in September that NetApp Chief Marketing Officer Julie Parrish had left the company in a "mutual decision" by both parties. NetApp confirmed the departure and the appointment of Brian Bakstran to the role in the interim. Parrish had been with the company since 2009, when she joined NetApp from Symantec and Veritas. She is only the latest executive to leave the company, on the heels of multiple executive departures in recent months.

Holly Rollo

Fortinet is doubling down on its marketing efforts, looking to make its brand stand out in a crowded market for security vendors. To lead that effort, the company has hired former FireEye marketing executive Holly Rollo for a new role of chief marketing officer. Rollo served as vice president of corporate marketing at FireEye until February of last year. Rollo has a strong history of brand repositioning and helping companies transform their marketing operations, traits that Fortinet said it hopes she brings to her new role. Partners at the time cheered the appointment, saying adding more emphasis on marketing is a "step in the right direction" for the security vendor.

Riccardo Di Blasio

At the end of the month, VMware top exec Riccardo Di Blasio resigned from the company, sources told CRN. Di Blasio served as senior vice president of worldwide sales and marketing for vCloud Air. He will be replaced by Bob Scordino, who was previously senior sales director for vCloud Air in the Americas. Di Blasio joined VMware in 2013 and since then has been a driving force in the company's push into the public cloud software market. However, last month sources told CRN that VMware had either already stopped development of vCloud Air or was looking to do so soon, or that it would look to combine it with parent EMC's Virtustream technology. It is not yet clear where Di Blasio is heading next.

Tina Gravel

Security startup Cryptzone is betting big on the channel, hiring a top exec away from one of the industry's largest solution providers. Tina Gravel, former Dimension Data vice president and general manager of cloud services, last month was named as Cryptzone's senior vice president of strategic alliances and channel partners. In her new role, Gravel will be charged with expanding the startup's small partner base to become a significant portion of the company's business. Gravel got right to work, announcing the rollout of a new partner program. She said she will also be driving investments on education, partner enablement and MDF.

Marcy Kawadler

Collaboration and unified communications company Redbooth made big moves in September to ramp up its partner program, naming former Polycom channel manager Marcy Kawadler as senior director of Channels and Alliances. In her new role, the 2015 Women of the Channel exec has been charged with spearheading the recruitment and enablement efforts around the company's new Unified Communications Channel Partner Program. Partners praised the appointment of Kawadler, saying her appointment shows a new level of channel commitment from the vendor.

Randall Jackson

SwiftStack, which develops an open-source version of Swift object storage technology, revealed last month that it had hired Randall Jackson as its new vice president of sales. Jackson told CRN that he is looking forward to helping the San Francisco-based company expand its business into new areas, including media and entertainment, life sciences, backup and archiving and government. He said he will also be looking to drive more investments in the channel, looking to expand the areas that it does business with partners. Jackson comes to SwiftStack from MongoDB, where he served as vice president of sales for enterprise and the West.

David Wadhwani

Application intelligence company AppDynamics named David Wadhwani as CEO last month, moving founder Jyoti Bansal, who had previously served as CEO, into the role of executive chairman and chief strategist. Wadhwani comes to AppDynamics from Adobe, where he served as senior vice president and general manager of the digital media business unit, overseeing the company's transformation to the cloud. He has also held positions at Macromedia, iHarvest and Oracle.

"AppDynamics has a big vision, a disruptive technology platform, and an exceptional team," Wadhwani said in a statement at the time. "It's uniquely positioned in a very large market. I am honored to partner with Jyoti and the rest of the team and excited to build on the incredible foundation they've created."

Juliette Rizkallah, Harry Gould

SailPoint, an identity and access management vendor based in Austin, Texas, made a dual investment in its channel in September, naming two new executives to its lineup. Juliette Rizkallah joined the company as chief marketing officer and Harry Gould joined as vice president of worldwide alliance and channels. Rizkallah, who joins the company from Check Point, is now responsible for driving marketing, brand development and demand generation for SailPoint. Gould, who jumped to SailPoint from Hewlett-Packard, will be charged with engaging partners and driving the company's channel strategic direction going forward.

John Sirianni

Webroot, an endpoint security and threat intelligence vendor, in September unveiled a big push into securing Internet of Things devices and rolling out a new toolkit to help partners take advantage of the security opportunities in that space. To lead the charge, it named John Sirianni as vice president of IoT strategic partnerships. He brings more than 30 years of experience to the role, most recently serving as vice president of strategic business development at Carrier IQ.

Anita Sharifi

Broadvoice, a hosted voice and telecommunications provider, kicked off the month with the Sept. 1 announcement of the appointment of Anita Sharifi as channel manager for the Southwest region. Sharifi comes to Broadvoice from Cbeyond, where she served as regional channel manager. She will now be responsible for supporting channel partners for Broadvoice in her region.

"Anita's past success in the Southern California region makes her a perfect complement to the newly expanded channel team and a key addition to the Broadvoice family. Coupling our continuously evolving hosted voice and unified communications solutions with Anita's commitment to her partners is a winning recipe for her continued success," CEO Jim Murphy said in a statement at the time.

Joe Gately

Cloud NAS provider Nasuni named a new executive vice president of worldwide sales and field operations last month. Joe Gately joined the company from ByteSphere, where he served as CEO before the company's recent acquisition by EXFO. He has also held executive roles at BMC Software, Mazu Networks and GiantLoop Networks. In his new role, he will be responsible for driving sales and marketing in the midst of a period of rapid company growth.

"Nasuni is in a great position," Gately said in a statement. "The company grew 300% last year, and I fully expect that kind of growth for the foreseeable future. There's just so much opportunity out there."

Pino de Candia

Midokura, a software network virtualization company based in Lausanne, Switzerland, named former Amazon software development engineer Pino de Candia as chief technology officer in September. He replaces Dan Mihai Dumimtriu, who will remain as CEO. At Amazon, de Candia was known for helping build NoSQL data store Dynamo and managing the caching team for the website application platform.

"I am thrilled to pass the role of CTO on to my longtime friend and collaborator Pino de Candia," Dumitriu said in a statement at the time. "Since joining the Midokura team in our early days, Pino has proven essential to our product development and continued overall company success. With his impressive leadership and exceptional distributed systems background, Pino will help further our commitment to advancing networking in OpenStack clouds and beyond."

Dan Murphy

On Sept. 24, OKI Data Americas announced that it had named Dan Murphy as its new senior vice president of marketing. He will be responsible for driving marketing activities with a particular focus on channel and vertical marketing. He joins the company from Unisys, No. 19 on the 2015 CRN Solution Provider 500 list, where he served as vice president of global marketing. He has also held positions at Avaya, Ricoh and Pitney Bowes.

"Dan Murphy brings tremendous skill, strategic vision and innovative leadership to our marketing group," Sergio Horikawa, deputy president of OKI Data Americas, said in a statement. "OKI Data is pleased to announce Dan's appointment. ... We are confident that he will provide the marketing leadership needed to support our organizational objectives."

Mark Housley

Projection hardware company InFocus Corp. named a new CEO in September, appointing longtime board member Mark Housley to the role. Interim CEO Raymond Yu will remain as president. Housley comes at an important time for the company, as it looks to rapidly expand its global team and product lines to increase growth to more international markets. Housley isn't a stranger to the company, serving on its board since 2009. He has also held CEO roles at Vigilent, Radius and Glimmerglass.

T erry Flood

Terry Flood was named the new CFO last month of Liquid Web, a Lansing, Mich.-based provider of Web hosting and managed cloud services. Flood joins the company from Simafore, where he served as principal. He also spent more than 10 years at Logicalis in a variety of roles, including CFO, chief operating officer and CEO. Flood will now be in charge of helping spur growth at Liquid Web, which just received a large investment from Madison Dearborn Partners.

"Our mandate for Liquid Web is accelerated growth," CEO Jim Geiger said in a statement. "With a seasoned executive such as Flood now filling the role of CFO, we have the final organizational piece in place to aggressively pursue growth via the development and acquisition of cutting-edge technologies and services."

Katherine Telepun

Cloud-focused MSP Cloudnexa expanded its leadership team at the beginning of the month, naming Katherine Telepun as vice president of sales. Telepun comes to the Philadelphia-based company from Comcast, where she served as director of business TV since September 2014.

"Katherine's leadership will be vital as we continue to enhance our services and vNOC platform for a variety of businesses, particularly within the mid-market segment, that are looking to improve their cloud deployment strategy," Cloudnexa CEO and founder Joel Davne said in a statement. "Having worked with Katherine before, I have firsthand experience of her unique ability to systematically accelerate sales. She's the perfect addition to our team as we enter the rapid growth phase of our company."

Eric Cordell

Dallas, Texas-based Salesforce.com partner Kairos Technologies has created a new position of chief customer officer, naming Eric Cordell to the role. Cordell comes to the company from Volo Solutions, where he served as chief executive optimist. He has also held positions at Bluewolf and Appirio.

"I am excited to join Kairos, and very much look forward to working with the global teams to further enrich customers' and partners' experience," Cordell said in statement. "I have always been passionate about the innovation and impact of cloud solutions on enterprises." The company's culture "revolves around its customers and partners," he said, "and I am pleased to be a part of the team that believes in working with great technologies to enable it."

Christopher Taylor

Outlier Security, an endpoint detection and response vendor based in Lake Tahoe, Nev., has landed former Intel Security exec Christopher Taylor as vice president of professional services. Taylor most recently serviced as director of incident response at Intel Security. In his new role, Taylor will be responsible for driving the company's professional services team to remediate breach issues at government and commercial organizations.