30 Notable IT Executive Moves: May 2015
Start It Off
Last month kicked off with a bang, with the blockbuster revelation of Cisco's new CEO, Chuck Robbins. Throughout the month of May, vendors and solution providers alike followed suit, naming new chief executives and making other key additions to their leadership lineups.
Take a look at who was in, and who was out, last month.
Chuck Robbins
Hands down the biggest executive move of the month, and arguably the year so far, was Cisco naming Chuck Robbins as the successor to longtime CEO John Chambers. Robbins, who was the company's former U.S. channel chief and most recently served as senior vice president of worldwide operations, will officially take the helm July 26. Partners applauded the move, calling Robbins the "people's choice" for CEO and a "solid channel advocate." Chambers, who has been CEO for the past 20 years, will remain with the company as chairman of the board.
Chris Dedicoat
After his appointment early in the month, incoming Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins flexed his executive muscle for the first time at the helm of the company with the appointment of a replacement for his former position. Chris Dedicoat, former senior vice president of the Europe, Middle East, Africa and Russia region, will now serve as senior vice president of worldwide operations, according to an internal memo viewed by CRN. The position change will take effect July 26, when Robbins assumes the CEO role. Dedicoat is a 20-year Cisco veteran, previously named by Chambers as one of the company's rising stars.
Cathie Lesjak, Tim Stonesifer, Chris Hsu
As HP steps toward its Nov. 1 separation date, the tech giant revealed more details last month as to who would be leading the two, independent Fortune 50 companies. As part of its Q2 earnings, HP revealed that Chief Financial Officer Cathie Lesjak (pictured) would continue as CFO of HP Inc., the printing and PC business; Tim Stonesifer would serve as CFO of Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, and Chris Hsu would be chief operations officer of Hewlett-Packard Enterprise. Stonesifer most recently served as CFO for HP's Enterprise Group and Hsu joined HP a year ago from private equity firm KKR.
Chris Riley
As part of a move to tighten links between its channel and direct sales teams, EMC named Chris Riley as senior vice president of Americas enterprise sales. Riley took the role after the expiration of a noncompete agreement with former employer HP, where he was vice president and general manager Americas for HP Storage. Riley has been with EMC since early 2014 and just took his first senior vice president role in February. He brings more than 21 years of storage sales experience to his new role, including more than 12 years at EMC. In his new role, Riley will help oversee EMC's push to integrate direct and channel sales teams as well as its anticipated July 1 rollout of a "Federation ready" partner program.
Carly Fiorina
While not technically an executive move, former HP top exec Carly Fiorina's May entrance into the presidential race is worth a mention. Fiorina was CEO of HP from 1999 to 2005, when she was fired after challenges with the vendor's 2002 Compaq acquisition. Fiorina has never held public office, but ran for California Senate in 2010.
Corey Nachreiner, Michelle Welch
In April, WatchGuard Technologies named a new CEO with the appointment of Prakash Panjwani. In May, the network security vendor made yet another round of top-level executive moves, naming Corey Nachreiner as chief technology officer and Michelle Welch as vice president of marketing. Nachreiner, a 16-year company veteran, most recently served as director of security strategy. Welch comes to WatchGuard from SafeNet -- the same company Panjwani did -- where she was vice president of marketing.
"As I step into my new role as CEO, I'm focused on building a leadership team that will continue to push product excellence, further enhance our service and commitment to our channel partners, while seeking opportunities to expand into new markets," Panjwani said in a statement.
Bill Lipsin
Last month, NetApp named a new channel chief with the appointment of Bill Lipsin as vice president of worldwide channel sales. NetApp snagged the executive from Brocade, where he served as vice president of global channels and systems integrators until May 5. Lipsin will report to Senior Vice President of Global Partner Sales and Alliances Thomas Stanley. In an interview with CRN, Lipsin said he plans to bring a global perspective to the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based vendor's channel program and work to leverage the channel to drive sales of the company's Clustered Data Ontap platform.
Chris Ross
Barracuda Networks created a role for a dedicated global channel chief last month as the networking security vendor rolls out its newly refreshed partner program. As senior sales vice president, global channels, Chris Ross will help drive investment in the company's channel program and work to aggressively grow its network of channel partners. Ross joins the company from Arcserve, where he was vice president of worldwide sales. He has also held positions at Bakbone Software, Symantec and PowerQuest.
Anthony Crutcher
As Accuvant and FishNet Security continues its integration into a single $1.5 billion solution provider behemoth, the company named industry veteran Anthony Crutcher as chief information officer to lead the technical integration. Crutcher comes to Accuvant and FishNet -- soon to be known as Optiv Security -- from Sitel, where he was senior vice president and chief technology officer. In his new role, Crutcher will be responsible for overseeing the technology integration of the two companies as well as upgrading systems to increase productivity and efficiencies across the organization.
Julie Spellman Sweet
In Accenture's second top executive move for North America of the year, the system integrator giant named Julie Spellman Sweet as its new chief executive for the region. Sweet had been with the company since 2010, most recently as general counsel, secretary and chief compliance officer. In her new role, Sweet will be responsible for leading the company's business in the region as well as remaining on Accenture's Global Management Committee. She replaces longtime company executive Stephen J. Rohleder, who is anticipated to retire from the company Aug. 31.
Scott Parrish
At the beginning of May, AWS Premier Partner 2nd Watch named longtime channel veteran Scott Parrish as its new chief financial officer. The news had great timing, coming on the heels of Amazon's Q1 revelations about the strength of its cloud business, which has been growing 50 percent year over year. Parrish joined the company from Microsoft partner Azaleos Corp., where he was chief financial officer. In an interview with CRN, Parrish said he will be responsible for managing 2nd Watch's financials through a period of spectacular growth and driving investments in professional services and managed services.
John Drolet
In response to a big growth opportunity it sees around Microsoft collaboration technology, Carousel Industries revealed last month that it had named John Drolet to the newly created position of vice president of Microsoft Solutions. Drolet will be responsible for growing the Exeter, R.I.-based solution provider's Microsoft professional services practice and its Skype for Business offerings. Drolet joins Carousel from eZuce, where he served as vice president of business development. He has also held positions at Aastra, Research in Motion, Citel Technologies and 3Com.
Don Maclean
Last month, DLT made a big bet on the federal security market with the creation of a new position for chief cybersecurity technologist. Stepping into the role is Don Maclean, a longtime federal security channel veteran. Maclean joins DLT from VMD Systems Integrators and has also held positions at MAR Inc. and BAE Systems. With more than 20 years of experience in the industry, Maclean also has experience managing security programs at a variety of top agencies, including the FBI, DOL and DOJ. In his new role, Maclean will be responsible for driving DLT's security agenda as well as evangelizing to federal customers on the importance of security technologies.
Kendra Krause, Erin Malone
Sophos shuffled its channel leadership last month, moving former North American channel chief Kendra Krause (pictured) to serve as vice president of global channel sales. Stepping into her former role is Erin Malone, who joins Sophos from Arcserve as its new vice president of North American channel sales. In an interview with CRN, the new channel leadership said it plans to ratchet up its product and go-to-market strategy around cloud and managed services. The two executives already appear to be putting that strategy to work, with sources telling CRN that Sophos is in the final stages of talks to acquire Reflexion Networks, a well-respected cloud email security, disaster recovery and encryption company.
Carbonite Executive Shuffle
Carbonite kicked off the month with the addition of six new executives to its top leadership lineup. Nina McIntyre will join the company as chief marketing officer; Christopher Wey as vice president of corporate development; Irwin Weiss as vice president of information technology; and Terri Delfino as vice president of corporate marketing. Internally, Carbonite promoted Kim Rose to vice president of program management and execution and Paddy Sreenivasan as vice president of server engineering.
"In the past year, we've set big goals for the company. ... With these strategic hires and internal promotions, we have enhanced our leadership team and positioned Carbonite to become the leading provider of business continuity solutions for small and midsize businesses," said Carbonite CEO Mohamad Ali in a statement.
Terry Cunningham
Hyper-converged infrastructure startup Springpath reported last month it had named Terry Cunningham as CEO, replacing co-founder Mallik Mahalingham, who will now serve as chief technology officer. Cunningham joined the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company from Evault, the cloud storage and disaster recovery business of Seagate, where he was president and general manager. Started by former VMware engineers, Springpath came out of stealth mode in February with the unveiling of $34 million in funding, and Cunningham has been charged with helping build the growing business.
Art Coviello
After retiring from his position as executive chairman at RSA for health reasons, Art Coviello jumped back into the security market last month, taking a role as venture partner at Rally Ventures. Coviello will help the early-stage investment firm evaluate and choose investments, with a particular focus on helping expand its portfolio of enterprise security investments.
"Art is a great addition to Rally Ventures both in the operational expertise he brings to the firm and the Rally portfolio, and the impact he will have on Rally's ability to build out our security portfolio and industry relationships," general partner and co-founder Charles Beeler said in a statement.
Jim Morris
On May 11, Seagate said it had added Jim Morris as executive vice president, product lines, quality and market operations. Morris joins Seagate from Harris Corp., where he was group president. Before that, he spent 11 years at Western Digital, including as executive vice president and general manager of the company's storage products. He has also held positions at McKinsey & Co. and as a captain and intelligence officer in the U.S. Army.
Nader Soudah
Application recovery company Quorum named a new channel chief last month, appointing Nader Soudah as vice president, Americas channel sales. Soudah will be responsible for expanding the company's channel sales and partner network as well as strengthening the program itself. Soudah joins the San Jose, Calif.-based company from Drobo, where he was senior director, Americas sales. He has also held channel-focused executive positions at Peek and Acer.
"Nader's past success in meeting strategic channel sales goals makes him uniquely qualified to drive our Americas channel sales initiatives," said Tony Craythorne, vice president of sales, Quorum, in a statement. "His expertise will complement our established executive team as we position Quorum for its next phase of growth."
Timothy Howes
ClearStory Data, a data intelligence company based in Menlo Park, Calif., named Timothy Howes as chief technology officer on May 21. Howes is a well-known name in tech, serving in the past as CTO of Netscape, Opsware and HP Software. Most recently, Howes served as vice president of engineering at Yahoo.
"Tim has a long, successful history of inventing breakthrough technology, new standards and introducing platforms and applications that are game changers with a focus on the practical needs of customers," said Sharmila Mulligan, founder and CEO of ClearStory Data. "We are thrilled to have Tim Howes lead ClearStory's advancements that build on our Spark-based data harmonization engine, scalable processing and business-oriented user model."
Brian Ahern
Cloud security company Threat Stack trumpeted a new CEO last month, naming Brian Ahern to the role. Ahern joins the company from Industrial Defender, which was acquired by Lockheed Martin last year. Ahern is the company's third CEO, replacing most recent CEO Doug Cahill, who joined in early 2014. Threat Stack launched last November and plans to raise more venture capital investments this year as well as continue to add new customers.
Ron Trackey
Security startup Onapsis has landed a former RSA executive as its vice president of product development. Ron Trackey joined the application security company at the end of the month after more than three years at RSA, where he most recently served as senior director of product management, fraud, authentication and mobile. Before RSA, Trackey spent more than 15 years at Microsoft, primarily working with the software giant's Bing and MSN products.
Said Ouissal
All-flash storage platform company Violin Memory named Said Ouissal as head of worldwide field operations, replacing Tom Mitchell, who will remain with the company during the transition. CEO Kevin DeNuccio praised Ouissal's "technical acumen" and "customer engagement experience" in a statement, saying his skill set will help drive Violin Memory's sales and strategy. Before the promotion, Ouissal served as senior vice president of product management and strategy. Before joining Violin Memory, Ouissal held senior-level executive positions at Juniper Networks, Redback Networks and Conxion.
Jony Ive
After helping drive designs for several products over the years, Apple said last month that it had promoted Jony Ive to chief design officer, now the third C-level executive position at the Cupertino, Calif.-based company. In his new role, Ive will focus more on hardware, software and retail location design and delegate some managerial duties to other executives. Ive has been with the company since 1992.
Todd Gresham
Source Support Services, an Atlanta-based IT support and logistics company, named a new CEO last month, replacing founder Mark Oldfield, who will now focus on strategic and employee initiatives as chairman of the board. Todd Gresham joined the company May 6, bringing more than 30 years of experience to the role, most recently from Xyratex, where he served as executive vice president and general manager of the company's enterprise storage division.
Dee Dee Lear
At the end of the month, Avnet said it had scooped up former Arrow Electronics executive Dee Dee Lear as senior vice president of Emerging Channels for the Americas. Lear most recently served as vice president of cloud and business development at Arrow. In her new role, Lear will be responsible for driving emerging channels and partner growth for the distributor, a group that includes systems integrators, ISVs, OEMs and solution providers. Before Arrow, Lear held positions at Agilysys, Savoir Technology Group and Sirius Computer Solutions.
Jeffrey Howe
Little Rock, Ark.-based Windstream said May 13 that Jeffrey Howe would be stepping in as executive vice president of enterprise sales for the network communications company. Howe has been with the company since 2007, most recently as president of the East and Central sales regions. He replaces John Leach, who left to "pursue other career opportunities."
"I am confident that Jeff will do a fantastic job leading our Enterprise sales organization," said David Works, president of business enterprise, in a statement. "He has a proven sales leadership track record and a deep understanding of our industry. Jeff will be an insightful voice as we chart our path going forward and I look forward to him joining the Enterprise leadership team."
Dave Evans
Integrated Media Technologies, a Los Angeles-based consulting and systems integrator, named Dave Evans as senior director of advanced consulting services and IT strategy. Evans brings more than 20 years of experience to the new role, including a position as vice president of solutions architecture at NBC Universal. In a statement, Evans said he looked forward to helping IMT continue transitioning from a VAR business to a services and software business.
"I’m excited at the prospect of contributing to the evolution and execution of their vision," Evans said in the statement.
Chuck Bernstein
Chuck Bernstein was named the new senior vice president of worldwide sales at Westell Technologies, an intelligent wireless provider based in Aurora, Ill. Bernstein joins the company from TeleCommunication Systems Commercial Software Group, where he served as vice president of worldwide sales. He has also held positions at Net Optics and Tellabs.
’Chuck is an exceptional sales leader bringing extensive experience with carrier and large global enterprise customers. His skills in building and leading world-class sales teams will be invaluable as we drive growth in these key verticals,’ said Tom Gruenwald, president and CEO, in a statement.
Anand Chavan, Sylvia Mead
After winning "Most Innovative Company" at RSA, application protection and management company Waratek has started expanding its executive lineup, last month adding Anand Chavan as senior vice president of financial services and Sylvia Mead as vice president of marketing for North America. Chavan brings financial services industry experience from UBS, JP Morgan, Bear Stearns and Amaranths. Mead joins the company from Advent Software, where she managed marketing for the U.S. and Asia.