30 Notable IT Executive Moves: July 2021
CyrusOne, Lacework, Acronis and Pavilion Data Systems saw changes in the CEO slot during July while CDW, IBM, Infoblox and others hired new key executives.
Data center real estate investment trust CyrusOne, disaster recovery software services provider Acronis and cloud security company Lacework are among the IT companies to see changes at the CEO position during July.
Solution provider CDW, tech giant IBM, cloud security and networking company Infoblox and other IT companies also saw changes in key leadership positions.
[RELATED: 30 Notable IT Executive Moves: June 2021]
What follows are 30 notable IT executive moves in July.
Judson Althoff
Microsoft changed the roles for two of its top executives, Judson Althoff and Jean-Philippe Courtois, with Althoff set to head up a “unified” worldwide commercial group.
Althoff leads “a unified global commercial organization focused on empowering customers and partners,” Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft said in a statement.
The global commercial organization brings together Microsoft’s global sales and marketing organization, previously run by Courtois, and the company’s worldwide commercial business, previously run by Althoff.
Althoff, who has been serving as executive vice president of Microsoft’s worldwide commercial business, will hold the title of executive vice president and chief commercial officer, Microsoft said.
Meanwhile, Courtois, who has served as executive vice president and president of Microsoft global sales, marketing and operations, will hold the title of executive vice president of national transformation partnerships.
Courtois will take on a new role “engaging more directly in cloud and AI technology, leading our national transformation partnerships around the globe, providing continued leadership to members of our global team, and in the pursuit of philanthropic interests aligned with both the company and his personal interests,” Microsoft said in its statement.
Courtois has worked at Microsoft for 37 years. Althoff joined Microsoft in 2013. He previously served as senior vice president of worldwide alliance and channels and embedded sales at Oracle.
Matt Milton
IBM’s forthcoming Kyndryl managed infrastructure business spin-off has been naming members of the team that will lead six global managed services practices.
The Armon, N.Y.-based company named IBM veteran Matt Milton as president of Kyndryl United States along with nine other regional leaders of markets that represent more than three-quarters of Kyndryl’s revenue. Milton has held various positions at IBM for the past 19 years, most recently as general manager of financial services for Big Blue’s North American presence.
In a LinkedIn post, Milton said, “We are guided by three principles—speed through simplification, effectiveness through integration and innovation through agility. I am honored to join the Kyndryl leadership team and looking forward to bringing best-in-class technology services to our customers in the U.S.”
Shlomit Weiss
Intel rehired one of the key engineers behind its dual-core and Skylake CPUs, marking yet another company veteran to return to the chipmaker as part of CEO Pat Gelsinger’s comeback plan.
The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company appointed 28-year Intel veteran Shlomit Weiss as senior vice president and co-general manager of the Design Engineering Group, where she will work alongside the group’s global head, Sunil Shenoy, another veteran engineer who rejoined the company shortly before Gelsinger began as CEO in February.
In her new role, Weiss will lead the entire chip development and design process for CPUs in client computers in Israel, according to Intel. She will continue to work in Israel, where she was most recently senior vice president of silicon engineering for data center networking products at Nvidia. She had joined Nvidia through its $7 billion acquisition of her previous employer, Mellanox Technologies.
Intel said Weiss had an outsized impact in her first 28 years at the company, where she won the Intel Achievement Award for developing the company’s game-changing dual-core CPU architecture. She was also in charge of development of Intel’s sixth-generation Core CPUs, code-named Skylake. The company added that Weiss “trailblazed the way for other women in executive technological positions” and founded the Intel Israel Women Forum in 2014.
Jay Parikh
Last month, Lacework brought on longtime Facebook engineering head Jay Parikh to spearhead the cloud security startup’s product, engineering and infrastructure efforts as co-CEO.
Parikh works with current Lacework CEO David “Hat” Hatfield, who joined the San Jose, Calif.-based company in February and will continue overseeing operations, business strategy, business development and market expansion efforts. Parikh assumed many of the responsibilities held by Dan Hubbard, who was Lacework’s CEO until February and then shifted into the chief product officer role.
Parikh served as Facebook’s vice president of engineering from November 2009 to February 2021, during which time he helped the social media giant grow from 300 million to more than 3 billion users by scaling Facebook’s data center, server, networking and subsea cable infrastructure. He also oversaw thousands of the company’s software, data, artificial intelligence and security systems.
As co-CEO, Parikh will lead Lacework’s growing technology team and research and platform development efforts.
Patrick Pulvermueller
Cyberprotection vendor Acronis hired Patrick Pulvermueller, the former partner business president for web hosting company GoDaddy, as its new CEO, with a goal to grow the company’s partner network and sales.
Serguei Beloussov, who founded Acronis in Singapore in 2003 and has served as CEO since 2013, will stay on with the company as a chief research officer, overseeing product and technology development.
The new CEO spent more than four years with GoDaddy, ending with the title of president of GoDaddy’s partner business. In this role, Pulvermueller led GoDaddy’s expansion of its hosting, productivity and security services through agency partners and resellers. He previously held executive roles at Host Europe.
Jenni Flinders
Jenni Flinders joined Sunnyvale, Calif.-based NetApp in July as senior vice president of partner and channel, according to her LinkedIn.
She previously worked as vice president and global channel chief at VMware. She unexpectedly and quietly left the virtualization superstar in 2020 after two years leading the company’s restructured channel charge.
Flinders was hired as vice president and global channel chief for VMware in April 2018 after spending 15 years in various channel partner and sales executive roles at Microsoft from 2000 to 2015. She introduced VMware Master Services Competencies and launched Partner Connect to change the way VMware engages and incentivizes its thousands of channel partners across the globe.
Ryan McDonald
Tysons, Va.-based solution provider DXC Technology hired Ryan McDonald last month as vice president of the Americas, according to his LinkedIn bio. In this role, he leads the DXC team in the Americas with a focus on the transportation, energy and automotive sectors.
He previously served as a managing director at Seattle-based solution provider Slalom. Prior to Slalom, he worked for more than eight years at Accenture. He left Accenture in March 2020 with the title of managing director of asset and operations services, leading sales, account interface and delivery for upstream clients, according to his LinkedIn bio.
McDonald also held roles at Wipro, SAIC, Capgemini, Oracle and Fujitsu, according to his LinkedIn bio.
David Ferdman
One of the largest data center operators in the world, CyrusOne, appointed its co-founder and former CEO David Ferdman as interim president and CEO after the sudden departure of its president and CEO just one year into his tenure.
The Dallas-based data center provider hired previous CEO Bruce Duncan, who was previously a real estate veteran with no data center industry experience, to lead CyrusOne in July 2020. CyrusOne’s board of directors said on July 28 it “separated” with Duncan as CEO along with his resignation as director of the company.
CyrusOne is now searching for a permanent leader. Ferdman was president and CEO of CyrusOne from 2000 to 2011 and will serve as its interim leader until a new successor is hired.
Ferdman said he plans to continue to execute CyrusOne’s strategy of delivering data center solutions for its customers in key markets in the U.S. and Europe.
Brad Rinklin
Brad Rinklin joined Santa Clara, Calif.-based cloud managed network services provider Infoblox last month as chief marketing officer and executive vice president.
Rinklin will report to CEO Jesper Andersen and lead the global marketing team to grow customer demand, according to a statement. Infoblox has more than 12,000 customers.
He previously served as CMO of VMware Carbon Black for more than a year and served in various roles at Akamai Technologies for more than 15 years, ending his time with Akamai in 2016 as CMO and senior vice president, global alliance, according to his LinkedIn bio.
Jeff Turner
Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Nextiva hired Jeff Turner as its new head of channel marketing in July.
Turner came to Nextiva after 17 years with Microsoft, with his most recent role being senior director of cloud sales, indirect channel providers. In that role, he led the American indirect channel team, including the cloud solution provider strategy. He provided leadership on distribution, channel marketing, channel sales, channel enablement and ISV integration into Microsoft’s distributors cloud marketplaces, according to Turner’s LinkedIn bio.
He previously served as director of national sales for the $5 billion U.S. reseller sales business of Microsoft, according to his LinkedIn bio.
Adaire Fox-Martin
Google Cloud named an SAP and Oracle veteran to lead the Mountain View, Calif.-based company’s cloud division in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
The No. 3 cloud computing provider tapped Adaire Fox-Martin to fill the vacancy left by Chris Ciauri, who served in the position for two years before leaving the company in March to pursue outside opportunities.
Fox-Martin had worked for SAP for more than 13 years. She most recently served as executive board member of global customer success, leading SAP’s global sales and services organization.
Her other former SAP positions were executive board member of global customer operations and four roles for SAP Asia-Pacific Japan from 2008 to 2017, including president, chief operating officer, senior vice president of industry business solutions and public sector vice president. Before joining SAP, Fox-Martin held various leadership roles at Oracle, where she spent more than 18 years.
Julie Parrish
Julie Parrish joined San Francisco-based network detection and response platform provider Corelight as chief marketing officer. She replaces Alan Saldich, the company’s founding CMO, who retired.
Parrish will help scale customer demand and acquisition while leading global branding, messaging and communications, according to a statement.
She has more than 25 years of marketing, sales and operations experience. She previously served as chief operating officer and CMO for RedSeal, helping the company double bookings from $21 million to $45 million, according to the statement and her LinkedIn bio.
She also worked as CMO of NetApp and Check Point Software Technologies and held leadership positions at Symantec and Nokia. At NetApp, she managed a global team of more than 300 employees and an annual budget of $200 million, according to her LinkedIn bio. At Symantec, she helped grow the company’s ecosystem to 60,000 partners.
Larry White
Larry White took leadership of Toshiba America Business Solutions (TABS) last month after his predecessor, President and CEO Scott Maccabe, retired and moved to an adviser role with parent company.
White held a variety of executive roles at Lake Forest, Calif.-based TABS since joining in 1996, according to a statement. He oversaw strategic planning across TABS’ business operations throughout North and South America as chief operating officer.
He also previously held the titles of chief revenue officer, senior vice president of sales of the Americas and vice president of operations and acquisitions, according to his LinkedIn bio.
Dario Zamarian
San Jose, Calif.-based data storage company Pavilion Data Systems appointed Dario Zamarian as CEO last month as the company plans to accelerate product offerings and go-to-market efforts. He replaces outgoing CEO Gurpreet Singh, according to a company statement.
Zamarian previously served as CEO of satellite communications company Space Systems/Loral, leaving the company in 2019, according to his LinkedIn bio.
He also worked as an operating adviser with The Blackstone Group, leaving the investment firm in 2017, according to his LinkedIn bio. He also served as global vice president and worldwide general manager of enterprise systems and solutions at Dell, leaving the company in 2013.
Sonia Martinez
Sonia Martinez joined Kirkland, Wash.-based endpoint management and security services provider Adaptiva as chief marketing officer. Martinez has more than 20 years of marketing experience, according to a company statement.
She previously served as vice president of worldwide marketing at Changepoint, which was acquired by Planview earlier this year. At Changepoint, Martinez rebuilt the company’s go-to-market strategy and improved opportunity conversion by 48 percent within six quarters, according to her LinkedIn bio.
She also served as vice president of worldwide marketing at K2, leaving the process management and automation company in 2017, according to her LinkedIn bio.
Lakshmi Hanspal
Last month, Lakshmi Hanspal joined Seattle-based Amazon as global chief information security officer of devices and services, according to her LinkedIn bio. She leads trust, security and safety for consumer electronics, autonomous vehicles, satellites and other devices.
She previously served as global chief security officer at Box. She also served as chief security officer at SAP Ariba, securing all aspects of SAP Business Cloud, according to her LinkedIn bio. She left SAP Ariba in 2019.
Hanspal also served as a senior leader of information security and risk management at PayPal, leaving the company in 2016. She also worked at Bank of America for more than 10 years, ending with the role of chief information security strategist and leader of the bank’s mortgage line of business, leading security and privacy strategies for the home loans business, according to her LinkedIn bio.
Bryan Hauptman
Richardson, Texas-based Armor hired Bryan Hauptman as its chief revenue officer last month as the cloud security company of more than 1,500 customers works to increase the number of its MSP partners.
Hauptman has about 20 years of experience in business-to-business technology, data protection and cybersecurity. He previously served as CRO of ThreatConnect, managing the company’s global revenue team for threat intelligence, cyber-risk quantification and security orchestration, automation and response, according to an Armor statement.
He also served as senior vice president of global sales at data backup company Datto, developing a playbook for providing managed services, according to the statement.
He left Datto in 2019 after five years with the company, according to his LinkedIn bio.
Yasser El-Haggan
Daly City, Calif.-based contact center platform provider Genesys hired Amazon Web Services’ former worldwide technical leader for rival service Amazon Connect.
Yasser El-Haggan joined Genesys with the title of senior vice president of worldwide solution consulting and field chief technology officer, according to his LinkedIn bio.
He worked at AWS for more than six years, ending with the role of head of worldwide solutions architecture of productivity applications. He held the Amazon Connect technical leader role for more than a year, according to his LinkedIn bio.
Prior to AWS, he worked for Avaya for more than six years. He left the unified communications provider in 2015 as a systems engineering manager, according to his LinkedIn bio.
Alicia Lynch
Alicia Lynch joined Teaneck, N.J.-based global solution provider Cognizant last month as senior vice president, chief security officer, according to her LinkedIn bio. She has more than 30 years of experience in intelligence and cybersecurity.
She replaces former senior vice president, global chief security officer Dan Smith, who left the company last month, according to his LinkedIn bio.
Lynch previously worked at systems integrator SAIC for more than three years, leaving as chief information security officer. Before SAIC, she worked at systems integrator Accenture as deputy chief information security officer for more than a year, according to her LinkedIn bio.
She retired as a colonel from the U.S. Army in 2012, where she served as an intelligence and cyber officer, according to her LinkedIn bio.
Michael Sterl
Business communications provider Intelisys, a ScanSource company, hired Michael Sterl as senior vice president of sales. He started the new role in July, according to his LinkedIn bio.
Sterl will lead the field and inside sales teams at Petaluma, Calif.-based Intelisys, according to an Intelisys statement. He founded multiple companies that support the IT channel, including Cloud Optik and Carve Digital.
Cloud Optik provides channel partners with data and analytics capabilities, according to Sterl’s LinkedIn bio. Carve Digital provides telecommunications and cloud communications service providers, master agents and channel partners with data-driven marketing services.
A communications service provider he co-founded, called SimpleSignal, was acquired by Vonage in 2015 for $25.25 million. Sterl served as regional vice president of channel sales at Vonage after the acquisition.
Phillip Rizzo
Phillip Rizzo returned to Austin, Texas-based Oracle in July as area vice president of North America cloud sales, according to his LinkedIn bio.
Rizzo left a 22-year career with Oracle in 2019 to join Qlik, according to his LinkedIn bio. He left Oracle as area vice president of enterprise integration sales. He joined Oracle in 1997 as a principal sales engineer.
Dustin Leek
Dustin Leek joined Vernon Hills, Ill.-based CDW as chief technology officer of the health-care segment in July, according to his LinkedIn bio.
Leek has more than 15 years of experience building and executing health-care strategies for clinical and business objectives, according to a post on LinkedIn. He’s worked in multiple health systems, including children’s hospitals, safety net hospitals and an integrated delivery network.
He previously worked as practice principal and health-care chief information officer at CBTS, working with customers and manufacturers, according to his LinkedIn bio.
Ahilan Rajadeva
IBM hired Ahilan Rajadeva in July as chief product officer and chief architect of IBM z/OS Container Extensions (IBM zCX), which allow IBM Z enterprise customers to extend and modernize native z/OS ecosystems through deployments of Linux on Z applications packaged as Docker containers, according to Rajadeva’s LinkedIn bio.
In this role, Rajadeva will lead development teams in bringing more innovation to IBM zCX and introduce more container and cloud-native development technologies to the operating system, according to his LinkedIn bio.
He has worked at Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM for more than eight years, previously holding senior software engineer roles.
Mathew Soltis
In July, Falls Church, Va.-based General Dynamics Information Technology (GDIT)—a member of CRN’s 2021 Tech Elite 250—hired Mathew Soltis as vice president of cloud solutions and growth, according to his LinkedIn bio.
He previously served as vice president of global cloud sales and customer engagement at data storage company Qumlo. Before that, he served as head of the Americas for F5 Networks’ cloud revenue and field operations. In that role, he worked with customers and partners on digital transformation through F5 application services and cloud-native solutions, according to his LinkedIn.
Before F5, he worked at Amazon Web Services as global head for the AWS Marketplace team with a focus on public sector and government customers, according to his LinkedIn bio. Soltis worked at AWS for more than three years.
Steve Fleet
Steve Fleet rejoined New York-based solution provider Capgemini in July, taking the title of vice president, delivery leader, according to his LinkedIn bio.
Fleet spent more than two years with consulting firm Korn Ferry, serving as senior partner of consumer products until December, according to his LinkedIn bio.
He previously spent about 15 years with Capgemini America, serving in various leadership roles supporting the North American applications services business, according to a Korn Ferry statement announcing his hiring in 2018. At Capgemini, he focused on business development, revenue, margin growth and services delivery for the consumer products, retail and distribution vertical.
Nishit Rao
Nishit Rao joined Campbell, Calif.-based VoIP product provider 8x8 as vice president of product marketing, according to his LinkedIn bio.
He previously worked at RingCentral, leading product marketing for various products by the unified communications company, including RingCentral Office, RingCentral Glip and the RingCentral Connect Platform, according to his LinkedIn bio.
Before RingCentral, Rao worked as senior director of product management for Oracle’s data integration platform cloud. In this role, he managed relationships with partners, vendors and systems integrators for outsourced Software-as-a-Service connectors and drove go-to-market activities.
Yan Rozovsky
San Francisco-based Salesforce hired Yan Rozovsky as its global banking group’s vice president of sales last month, according to his LinkedIn bio.
Rozovsky previously headed sales for the Americas for IBM Security. In this role, he had responsibilities related to new revenue, sales team management and customer success. He worked at IBM for more than four years, according to his LinkedIn bio.
Prior to IBM, he worked at social media company LiftMetrix as chief revenue officer. He worked at LiftMetrix for more than three years, leaving in 2017, according to his LinkedIn bio.
Cullen Childress
Last month, Cullen Childress joined Austin, Texas-based SolarWinds as group vice president of product, according to his LinkedIn bio.
He previously served as head of product at software development and collaboration tools provider Atlassian. He worked at Atlassian for more than a year, according to Childress’ LinkedIn bio.
Childress co-founded and led enterprise AI company Ether Labs, which was bought by Atlassian, and he co-founded and led online school fundraising tool provider LivingTree, which was acquired by Groupon, according to his LinkedIn bio.
He worked for nine years at wireless technology provider Qualcomm, leaving in 2010 with the title of senior director of product management for Qualcomm subsidiary Flarion.
Chris Pappas
Palo Alto, Calif.-based VMware hired Chris Pappas as vice president of the Americas for networking and security sales last month, according to Pappas’ LinkedIn bio.
Pappas previously held the title of vice president of sales for North America at Agari. He worked at the company for more than three years, according to his LinkedIn bio. His prior work history includes more than a year at Area 1 Security and about four years with Bracket Computing, where he served as vice president of worldwide sales and channels.
He also worked for four years at Cisco Systems, where he left in 2012 with the title of operations director, according to his LinkedIn bio.
Vipul Patel
Vipul Patel was promoted to corporate vice president of global sales strategy at Santa Clara, Calif.-based AMD in July, according to his LinkedIn bio.
In this role, Patel works as a “consigliere” to the chief sales officer, according to his LinkedIn bio. He drives the sales team’s integration with Xilinx—the subject of a pending $35 billion acquisition by AMD—and is responsible for the go-to-market strategy and deployment of investment dollars for all products and segments through business planning.
Patel has worked at AMD for more than 17 years, previously serving as a senior director and director of business development, sales operations and strategy for global multinational corporation accounts. In this role, he developed, launched and managed worldwide consumer and commercial go-to-market strategy initiatives for revenue and market-share growth, among other responsibilities.
He joined AMD in 2004 as an engineering cost accountant, according to his LinkedIn bio.