The 25 Blockbuster IT Executive Moves Of 2014 (So Far)

The Biggest Blockbusters Of 2014

The year has been an extremely busy one so far for big-name executive moves. From a long anticipated new CEO for Microsoft to Symantec firing its CEO, 2014 has been a busy year for executive appointments and departures.

Here's a look back at the 25 biggest IT executive appointments and departures from the year so far.

Satya Nadella

After months of searching and rumors over who would be chosen to replace Steve Ballmer as CEO of Microsoft, the software giant announced in February that Satya Nadella would be stepping up to the plate. A 22-year veteran of Microsoft, Nadella most recently was executive vice president of Microsoft's Cloud and Enterprise group. Since then, Nadella has been spearheading major changes at the company, including a turn to cloud- and mobile-first strategies and revealing massive layoffs to fuel the new company focus.

Bill Gates

In conjunction with Satya Nadella's appointment as CEO of Microsoft, Bill Gates stepped down as chairman of the company. Replacing the former CEO was John Thompson, former Symantec CEO who previously was lead independent director on the Microsoft board. Despite relinquishing his chairman role, Gates will remain on the board of directors as well as adopting a new role as Technology Advisor. The new position will give Gates a bigger role in helping mold the company's technology and product direction.

Steve Bennett

In the midst of a company overhaul, Symantec fired CEO Steve Bennett in March. While Bennett was overseeing the revamp of the Mountain View, Calif.-based company's product and go-to-market strategies, an internal memo revealed the company's board of directors didn't believe the now former-CEO was moving fast enough. Bennett was named CEO of Symantec in 2012, previously serving on the company's board as well as spending several years as CEO of Intuit.

Symantec board member Michael Brown stepped in as interim CEO.

Dan Warmenhoven

As part of a NetApp executive shakeup, Chairman and former CEO Dan Warmenhoven left the company after more than 20 years. He will remain on the board of directors for the majority of the year before retiring. After previous roles at HP and IBM, Warmenhoven served as president and CEO of NetApp from 1994 to 2005, and then as CEO until 2009. NetApp current CEO Tom Georgens will give up his role as president of NetApp to step in as chairman. As the final piece of the shakeup, NetApp Executive Vice President of Worldwide Field Operations Robert Salmon will be assuming the role of president and head of go-to-market operations.

Jason Chen

It's a tough time to be in the PC business, and Acer is no exception with a tumultuous end to 2013. After previous chairman and CEO J.T. Wang announced his resignation in November, the computer maker named Jason Chen as president and CEO to help revive the company. Effective Jan. 1, Chen comes from his last position as senior vice president of worldwide sales and marketing at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, as well as holding previous positions at Intel.

Rajeev Suri

When it said in September that it was selling off its mobile phone business to Microsoft, Nokia also lost is CEO at the time, Stephen Elop. In April, the Finnish communications company said that Rajeev Suri will be stepping up as president and CEO. Suri brings his long-term veteran experience to the table, most recently serving as CEO of Nokie Siemens Network, with previous roles as NSN head of global services and senior vice president of Asia-Pacific at Nokia.

Jim Hagemann Snabe

After more than 20 years with the company, Jim Hagemann Snabe stepped down as co-CEO of SAP in May. Bill McDermott, who Snabe previously shared the CEO role with, will now serve as the sole CEO of the Walldorf, Germany-based software company. Snabe gave plenty of warning of his departure, first announcing his intention to leave in July 2013 to spend more time with his family and move on to the next phase of his career.

Stephen Orenberg

Kaspersky Lab underwent an executive shakeup in May, with a Reuters report saying that many managers were departing the company due to disagreements with CEO Eugene Kaspersky's running of the company. As part of that shakeup, Stephen Orenberg, president of Kaspersky Lab's North America business, left after more than 10 years with the company. According to Reuters, a company statement said that Orenberg had a "disagreement" with the current business strategy of Kaspersky.

Other departures during the shakeup included Nikolay Grebennikov, CTO and head of research and development, Petr Merkulov, North American executive vice president, and John Malatesta, global head of corporate marketing.

Todd Bradley

After sitting at the head of Hewlett-Packard's PC business for eight years, Todd Bradley shifted gears in June to Tibco Software. Bradley will serve as president of the Palo Alto, Calif.-based business intelligence software maker. In his most recent role at HP, Bradley was executive vice president of strategic growth initiatives, following up on his role as executive vice president of HP Printing & Personal Systems.

Solution providers said the move was a huge win for Tibco and said they anticipated to see Bradley driving a lot of growth for the $1.1 billion company.

Meg Whitman

As Hewlett-Packard's interim chairman of the board announced he would retire due to health reasons, HP turned to CEO Meg Whitman. Her July appointment comes three years after Whitman was named president and CEO of the company, and she has seen been credited with revamping the company and steering HP clear of problems left behind by predecessors. HP shares surged on the news, hitting the highest it has been since July 2011.

Chris Wolf

Former Gartner research vice president Chris Wolf joined VMware in January as the company's new CTO of the Americas. In his new role, Wolf leads product development around the cloud and mobile computing. Wolf brings experience from Gartner as well as experience as a senior analyst at the Burton Group and principal consultant at Chris Wolf Consulting Services focusing on virtualization, backup and recovery.

David Goulden

After most recently serving as COO of EMC's Information Infrastructure and CFO of EMC, David Goulden moved into a new role in January as CEO of EMC Information Infrastructure. Goulden is widely regarded as the top candidate to succeed current CEO Joe Tucci, who is expected to retire next year. Goulden has spent more than 10 years at the storage vendor in various roles.

Scott Guthrie

After Satya Nadella assumed the role of Microsoft CEO, corporate vice president of Windows Azure Application Platform Scott Guthrie was chosen to fill his shoes. Starting on an interim basis in February as head of Microsoft's Cloud and Enterprise group, Guthrie was permanently named to the position in March. At Microsoft since 1997, Guthrie started his career at the software giant as a program manager and helped propel Microsoft's .Net framework.

Sheila Jordan

In January, Symantec named Sheila Jordan as its new CIO, replacing Marty Hodgett, who left the company shortly before. Jordan comes most recently from Cisco, where she spent 10 years, most recently as senior vice president of IT, communication and collaboration. In addition to a long stay at Cisco, Jordan brings with her experience from the Walt Disney Company, NextSpace and SnapLogic.

Jon DeVaan

After more than 30 years with Microsoft, Jon DeVaan left the company in January to spend more time with his family. Most recently, DeVaan was corporate vice president for Windows development, but he also helped develop Excel and legacy Windows systems over his tenure with the company. DeVaan led development of Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 as head of the Windows Core Operating System Division.

Chris Doggett

Former Kaspersky Lab channel chief Chris Doggett was promoted in April to managing director of Kaspersky Lab North America. Doggett joined Kaspersky in 2012 as vice president of North American channel sales, most recently serving as senior vice president of corporate sales for North America. Beyond experience at Kaspersky, Doggett brings with him a strong channel background from Financial Recovery Technologies and Sophos.

Lisa Su

As AMD faces a beleaguered market for chips and PCs, the company is attempting to aggressively restructure to focus on what it sees as the "high-growth" chip market areas, such as embedded devices. As part of the restructuring, the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company said it had named Lisa Su as the company's new COO. In her new role, Su will be in charge of AMD's Enterprise, Embedded and Semi-Custom Business Group. She previously served as AMD general manager for global business units.

Rod Millar

As part of a series of executive moves for IT distributor Tech Data, Rod Millar was named senior vice president of Tech Data Mobile Solutions. The new role gives Millar leadership over the distributor's new business dedicated to mobile devices, software and services. Millar isn't new to Tech Data and comes from a previous position as president of Tech Data Mobile in Europe. Before joining Tech Data in 2007, he worked at telecommunications firm Caudwell Group.

Gregg Steinhafel

Following up on the company's high-profile data breach, Target CEO Gregg Steinhafel said in May that he was stepping down as the retailer worked to bolster its systems. Target CFO John Mulligan stepped in for the interim period as president and CEO. Steinhafel was responsible for leading the response against the massive data breach that resulted in the theft of tens of millions of credit and debit cards during the holiday season.

Brad Maiorino

Shortly after the departure of the retailer's CEO Gregg Steinhafel in May, Target also appointed Brad Maiorino as chief security officer in the wake of a massive data breach that resulted in the theft of tens of millions of credit and debits cards. Maiorino was charged with protecting the company and customers from major security threats. The new Target executive is the former General Motors chief information security and information technology risk officer. Target said that its appointment of Maiorino shows that the retailer is committed to protecting its customers and preventing a massive data breach from occurring again.

Justin Scopaz

What better place to look for a new senior director of worldwide distribution than a former executive from a major distributor? Juniper did just that as it hired former Ingram Micro executive Justin Scopaz to lead a team driving distribution globally for the networking vendor. Scopaz has a long career history in distribution, with more than 17 years at Ingram Micro, most recently as vice president and general manager at the distributor.

Alan Mulally

After rumors that Alan Mulally was a front-runner to replace Steve Ballmer as Microsoft CEO, the former Ford CEO has turned instead to Google, joining the company's board of directors. In January, Mulally officially withdrew himself from the Microsoft CEO candidacy, before revealing May 1 that he would be retiring from Ford effective July 1. Google CEO Larry Page said that Mulally will bring a "wealth of proven business and technology leadership experience." More specifically, Mulally will hold a spot on the Audit Committee.

Dennis Woodside

Longtime Google executive Dennis Woodside made a change in April to become COO of Dropbox. In his new role, Woodside will be responsible for global business sales operations, marketing and partnerships. At Google, Woodside was most recently CEO of Motorola Mobility, which was sold by Google to Lenovo, as well as president of the Americas.

Rick Osterloh

While Motorola Mobility was in the middle of its sale to Lenovo from Google, Rick Osterloh stepped up as the company's new president and COO, replacing Dennis Woodside. Osterloh brings with him a bevy of mobility experience, most recently as senior vice president of products for Motorola Mobility. Prior to that, Osterloh was vice president of product management and design at Skype and vice president of product and marketing at mobile security company Good Technology.

Ralph Loura

After spending four years as CIO of Clorox, Ralph Loura quietly moved to Hewlett-Packard in the beginning of July. At HP, Ralph Loura will assume the role of CIO for HP's Enterprise Group, replacing Tami Mallett, who will be managing a new program. The new role will give Loura leadership over the second-largest part of the HP business, just after its Printing and Personal Systems Group. Partners said that the appointment by HP, which has been reporting dropping revenue, is showing that the company is committed to ensuring its business solutions and services are up to snuff.