30 Notable IT Executive Moves: March 2014

Start It Off

March heated up the executive move carousel with a bombshell from Symantec, more leadership changes at Microsoft, and the retirement of Intel's global channel chief. Let's take a look.

Steve Bennett

The big news in March came courtesy of Symantec. The board of directors fired CEO Steve Bennett, who was in the midst of a major corporate overhaul of Symantec's product and go-to-market strategies. However, according to an internal memo, the board felt the company's turnaround wasn't moving fast enough under Bennett, who was named CEO of Symantec in 2012. He previously served as chairman of Symantec's board, and before that he served for several years as CEO of Intuit. Bennett also spent more than 20 years at General Electric in a variety of executive roles.

Michael Brown

Stepping in for Steve Bennett as interim CEO of Symantec is Michael Brown, who will keep his seat on the company's board of directors. He joined Symantec in 2005 through the company's acquisition of Veritas, where he served as a board member. Previously, Brown served as CEO and chairman of Quantum for several years. In addition, he held executive leadership positions at EqualLogic and Line 6 and also served on the boards of Maxtor and Digital Impact.

Steve Dallman

Intel's former global channel chief is calling it quits after a 35-year career. Steve Dallman, who currently serves as as vice president and general manager of Intel's Original Design Manufacturing Channel Engagement business, is retiring at the end of the month. Dallman first joined Intel in 1979 and spent nearly his entire professional career with the chip maker. He most recently served as general manager of Intel's worldwide Reseller Channel Organization (RCO) for several years. Dallman also served as director of channel sales and marketing for North America for several years and served as head of distribution sales for the Americas.

Tony Bates

With Satya Nadella winning the CEO spot at Microsoft, several executives are now on their way out of the software giant. First up is former CEO candidate Tony Bates, who stepped down from his role as executive vice president of business development and evangelism at Microsoft. Bates previously served as CEO of Skype, joining Microsoft in 2011 following its acquisition of the company. He also worked at Cisco, most notably as senior vice president and general manager of Cisco's Enterprise, Commercial and Small Business Group.

Tami Reller

Tami Reller, executive vice president of marketing at Microsoft, is also exiting the software giant. Like Bates, Reller was appointed to her most recent position last summer during Microsoft's massive corporate reorganization. A 13-year veteran of the company, Reller previously served as both the CFO and CMO of Microsoft's Windows division. She previously worked at Great Plains Software in a variety of roles for more than 15 years and joined Microsoft when it acquired Great Plains in 2001. Chris Capossela, a 23-year Microsoft veteran, replaced Reller as executive vice president of marketing.

Scott Guthrie

Microsoft made it official by naming Scott Guthrie as the permanent replacement for Satya Nadella's old post as executive vice president of Microsoft's Cloud and Enterprise Group. He was named as interim head of the group in February. Guthrie, a 17-year veteran of Microsoft, served as a program manager early in his career and is credited with leading development on Microsoft's .Net framework. He also ran development of the Microsoft Azure platform.

Stephen Boyle

Microsoft added Stephen Boyle, a longtime Oracle executive, to its leadership team as vice president of enterprise partners. Boyle most recently served as Oracle's vice president of ISV and OEM alliances, a role he had held since 2010. He first joined Oracle in 1991 as a sales manager and later served as vice president of strategic alliances. Before Oracle, he spent several years at Sun Microsystems.

Jeremy Burton

Jeremy Burton has a new role at EMC. Burton, who first joined the storage leader in 2010 as chief marketing officer, was named president of products and marketing of EMC Information Infrastructure, the vendor's storage and data protection division, which also includes RSA's security business. Prior to EMC, he was president and CEO of Serena Software for nearly three years. Before that, he was group president of enterprise security and data management at Symantec.

Karl Soderlund

Former Avaya channel chief Karl Soderland has a new home. Soderland departed Avaya last month to become the vice president of worldwide channels at Aruba Networks. He joined Avaya as vice president of U.S. channel sales in 2011 and was later promoted to head of Americas channels. Before Avaya, Soderland was senior vice president of worldwide sales at Certeon. He also held executive sales roles at HP and Fortinet.

John Salamone

Kaspersky Lab added John Salamone to its executive team as vice president of SMB sales. Salamone most recently spent four years at Brainshark, a cloud-based video presentation vendor, as vice president of sales. Before that, he worked at Mentor Graphics and held several positions, including senior director of worldwide distribution channels of its embedded software division. He also held sales positions at EMA Design Automation and PADS Software.

Glen Ziegler

Huawei Enterprise has a new channel chief in Glen Ziegler, a former HP and 3Com channel executive. He replaces Rob Claus, who stepped down earlier this year as vice president of U.S. channel sales and marketing to join Tely Labs. Ziegler previously led channel strategies for HP's networking business in the Americas. He joined HP through the company's acquisition of 3Com, where he served as director of channel partners. Before that, he served as a sales manager at Nortel Networks.

Pete Howard

NetApp lost two key channel executives amid its recent layoffs. First was Pete Howard, who served as vice president of global channel sales at the storage company. Howard spent eight years at the company, first as director of North American channel sales. Before NetApp, Howard served as principal of Rohner and Associates, a channel strategy consultancy, and also held channel positions at Business Objects and Sybase.

Al Danza

In addition to Peter Howard, NetApp also lost Al Danza, channel director of NetApp's East region in the U.S. Danza spent more than 12 years at the storage company. Before that, he served as senior director of strategic alliances at Symbol Technology for nearly three years. He also held channel management and business development roles at Sterling Software and Ericsson Mobile Communications, respectively.

Barry O'Sullivan

Former Cisco executive Barry O'Sullivan has a new role as CEO of Altocloud, a new call center software startup. O'Sullivan left Cisco in November after nearly 12 years with the company; he most recently served as senior vice president of the networking giant's unified communications and collaboration business. Before that, he held executive roles at Nortel Networks, where he worked for three years.

Kenneth Levine

Data loss prevention vendor Verdasys named Kenneth Levine as its new CEO. Levine previously served as senior vice president and general manager of security products at McAfee for two years. Before that, he spent for than five years at Nitro Security as CEO and also worked at Cabletron Systems for 13 years in a variety of roles, including executive vice president of sales.

Nader Soudah

Backup and recovery vendor Quorum appointed Nader Soudah as its new vice president of Americas channel sales. Soudah will be responsible for developing the company's channel business. He most recently served as senior director of Americas sales at storage vendor Drobo. Soudah also served as director of sales at Peek, a mobile device and cloud vendor, and also served as head of U.S. channel sales at Acer.

Darren Thomas

Micron named Darren Thomas as vice president of its Storage business unit. A 30-year veteran of the IT industry, Thomas most recently served as vice president of Enterprise Storage for Dell, where he spent nearly 10 years. Before that, he spent 15 years at Compaq in a variety of executive roles, including vice president and general manager of storage.

Adam Brush

Thin-client vendor IGEL Technology tapped Adam Brush as its new vice president and general manager of sales and alliances for North America. Brush previously served as vice president and general manager of sales for Dell's Wyse division following Dell's acquisition of Wyse in 2012. He also served as vice president of sales for the East region at Wyse and held sales management positions at Citrix, Quantum and Sintaks.

Yael Zheng

Former VMware executive Yael Zheng has joined storage virtualization vendor Tintri as chief marketing officer, where she'll oversee the company's global marketing efforts. Zheng most recently served as a venture adviser at Next World Capital, but she's best known for her tenure at VMware, where she served as vice president of worldwide marketing. She worked at Sun Microsystems for several years in various roles, including executive director of the company's software group.

Adam Wray

Distributed database vendor Basho hired two new top executives, starting with Adam Wray, who took over as CEO. Wray most recently served as president and CEO of Tier 3, where he also served as a member of the board of directors. He also spent several years at Limelight Networks as vice president of strategic alliances and channels. Before that, he held management positions at Amazon and Akamai Technologies.

Dave McCrory

Basho also hired Dave McCrory as its new chief technology officer. McCrory joins Basho from Warner Music Group, where he served as senior vice president of engineering. Before that, he worked at VMware as a senior architect within the company's Cloud Foundry business and also worked at Dell as a cloud solutions architect. McCrory also founded two virtualization companies, Hyper9 and Surgient.

Terry Noonan

Pure Storage added Terry Noonan, a longtime storage industry veteran, to its executive team. Noonan most recently served as chief technology officer and vice president of research and development at EVault. Over his career, he also held vice president roles at Shavlik Technologies, NetApp and Symantec. Noonan also spent nearly seven years as Veritas, most notably as vice president and CTO of the vendor's data management group.

Kimberly Boarts

National solution provider DLT Solutions named former Oracle executive Kimberly Boarts to its team as senior director of enterprise applications, where she'll manage the solution provider's Oracle business. Boarts spent 12 years at Oracle, most recently serving as group sales director. She most recently served as vice president of enterprise solutions at Affigent.

Daniel K. Jan

Storage and data security vendor Qualstar appointed Daniel K. Jan as executive vice president, where he will oversee the company's day-to-day operations and strategic partnerships. Before Qualstar, Jan spent several years at BDT Products, a division of storage tape automation firm BDT GmbH, where he most recently served as president. He also held management roles at other IT companies such as IBM.

Hien Nguyen

Talari Networks named Netgear executive Hien Nguyen as its new vice president of sales. Nguyen spent more than 10 years at Netgear in a range of executive roles, most recently serving as vice president of Americas sales for the vendor's commercial business unit. Before joining Netgear, she held management roles at USi, Sun Microsystems and NCR.

Gloria Canales

Document management vendor Parascript made two additions to its channel team. First up is Gloria Canales, who joined the company as channel marketing manager and will lead the company's partner program across North America and India. A 30-year veteran of the IT industry, she held management positions at companies such as Avnet Technology Solutions, Teradici, UC4 Software and HP.

Todd Leveque

Parascript also named Todd Leveque as director of sales, where he'll be responsible for the vendor's sales in North Central U.S. and Canada. A 17-year veteran of the IT industry, Leveque held sales and account management positions at several imaging and document management companies, including Eastman Kodak, Kofax Imaging and ReadSoft.

Vahid Manian

Semiconductor firm Entropic promoted two executives on its leadership team, starting with Vahid Manian, who was appointed as senior vice president of global engineering and operations. Manian joined Entropic in 2012 and previously served as senior vice president of global operations. Before that, he served as senior vice president of business operations at Telegent Systems and spent more than 13 years at Broadcom, most recently as senior vice president of global manufacturing and operations.

Michael Farese

Entropic also promoted Michael Farese to the role of chief technology officer. Farese joined the company is 2010 as senior vice president of global engineering and operations. Before that, he spent several years at BitWave Seminconductor as president and CEO. He also worked at Palm as senior vice president of engineering and at WJ Communications as president and CEO.

Janet Hendrickson

Telecom master agent Intelisys appointed Janet Hendrickson to its channel team as senior manager of strategic VAR partner development for the West and Central U.S. regions. Hendrickson will be charged with recruiting, training and developing Intelisys' VAR community. She most recently served as vertical program manager at ShoreTel and also worked as senior channel marketing management at Ruckus Wireless. Before that she held management roles at several companies including Evans Data Corporation and Tablus.