30 Notable IT Executive Moves: November 2013

Start It Off

The weather's colder, but the executive moves are hotter this month as November saw major changes at Dell plus new CEOs at BlackBerry and Juniper Networks.

Bill Rodrigues

Dell had a big month of executive changes with a major shakeup of its channel management team. At the center of the shift is 14-year Dell veteran Bill Rodrigues, formerly vice president and general manager of Dell's global business, who was named as president of Dell North America. He replaces Paul-Henri Ferrand, a nine-year veteran of Dell. As part of the executive shift, top channel executives will report directly to Rodrigues.

Cheryl Cook

Dell also named a new channel chief. Cheryl Cook, formerly vice president of enterprise solutions, was named vice president of Dell's global channels and alliances. She replaces longtime channel chief Greg Davis, who moved to a new role at Dell. Cook is a relative newcomer to Dell, joining the company in 2011. She previously served as senior vice president of sales at Nuance Communications and spent more than 12 years at Sun Microsystems in channel and executive management roles.

Greg Davis

Longtime channel chief Greg Davis was moved to a new position as vice president of software and peripherals at Dell. Davis spent nearly seven years as head of Dell's global channels and led the company's charge to become a partner-centric vendor. Prior to that role, he was president of Dell Canada and joined the company in 2002 as vice president and general manager of Dell's imaging business unit. He previously worked at IBM in a channel role.

Stephen Felice

In addition to its big channel management shakeup, Stephen Felice, president and chief commercial officer of Dell, is reportedly leaving the company. Felice joined Dell in 1999 and previously served as senior vice president of the company's Consumer, Small and Medium Business Group. He also served as head of Dell's Asia Pacific and Japan regions. Prior to Dell, he served as CEO of DecisionOne Corp. and also worked at Bell Atlantic.

Shaygan Kheradpir

Juniper Networks has found its replacement for former CEO Kevin Johnson. The networking company named Shaygan Kheradpir, former CTO and CIO of Verizon Communications, as CEO and a member of the board of directors. Kheradpir most recently was chief operations and technology officer for Barclays. Before Barclays, he spent more than 10 years at Verizon Communications and was a an original member of the management team when GTE and Bell Atlantic merged to form Verizon.

Thorsten Heins

BlackBerry said goodbye to CEO Thorsten Heins as the turmoil around the smartphone company and its future plans continues. Heins stepped down following BlackBerry's announcement that it had abandoned plans to go private. He was named CEO in 2012, succeeding BlackBerry co-founders and co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis. Heins joined BlackBerry in 2007 and held several senior-level positions before being named CEO. Prior to that, Heins served as CTO of Siemens AG.

John Chen

Replacing former BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins, at least on an interim basis, is John Chen. The company named Chen as interim CEO and chairman of the board of directors. He also formerly served as CEO of Sybase, joining the company in 1997 as president and COO before taking over as chief executive in 1998. Sybase was later acquired by SAP in 2010, and Chen retired from the company in 2012 and became a senior advisor of Silver Lake Partners.

J.T. Wang

After another rough quarter of slumping PC sales, Acer announced that Chairman and CEO J.T. Wang will step down from the chief executive position in January. Initially Acer announced Jim Wong, corporate president of Acer, would succeed Wang. But the computer maker later announced that Wong also resigned and Acer Founder Stan Shih would take over as chairman and interim president as the company continues to look for a full-time replacement.

Chris Jones

Juniper Networks lost another high-profile executive this month as U.S. channel chief Chris Jones departed for Avaya. Jones was named vice president of worldwide commercial and distribution at Avaya. He took over as vice president of Americas partner sales at Juniper earlier this year, replacing outgoing channel chief Frank Vitagliano. He joined Juniper in 2010 after working at Cisco for several years, most recently as director of worldwide channels at Cisco Webex.

Adam Famularo

CA Technologies promoted 15-year veteran Adam Famularo as its new North American channel chief. Famularo takes over as senior vice president of North American partner sales for the software maker after most recently serving as senior vice president and general manager of the AppLogic Business Unit. Before that, he served as senior vice president and general manager of cloud computing for all of CA Technologies. Famularo joined CA in 1998.

Francis DeSouza

Francis deSouza, head of Symantec's product development business, has left the software company. DeSouza will step down officially from his position as president of products and services for Symantec on Dec. 1. He joined Symantec in 2006 when it acquired IMlogic, which deSouza founded. Before joining Symantec, he worked as a product manager at Microsoft and a researcher at IBM's T.J. Watson Research Labs.