Polycom Adds Former Cisco, Intel, HP Execs In Executive Bulk-Up

The ongoing makeover of Polycom's executive team continued this week with confirmation that Polycom has hired four North America-based area vice presidents and a new vice president of worldwide system engineering to focus on video collaboration.

The four new area vice presidents (AVPs) are Greg Prindle, AVP, Enterprise East; Peter Elmgren, AVP, Enterprise West; Joe Vranicar, AVP, Enterprise Central; and Dean Ash, AVP, Enterprise Sales. All report to David Ruggiero, president of Polycom North America and himself a recent Polycom hire, and each will develop and implement go-to-market sales plans by region and focus on Polycom's alliance, service provider and VAR partnerships, according to Polycom.

Prindle, based in New York, comes to Polycom from Cisco, where he headed Cisco's tri-state commercial operation in the Northeastern U.S. Elmgren, based in Polycom's Pleasanton, Calif. headquarters, was most recently managing director of worldwide sales and operations for Intel's Software and Services Group.

Vranicar, based in Chicago, was previously director of sales for HP Networking in the central North America region, and also worked with Juniper, EMC and Cisco in various sales and account management roles. Ash, based in Dallas, is also a Cisco veteran, having come to Polycom following a role as director of sales in Cisco's service provider region.

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Polycom also has a new vice president of worldwide systems engineering in Ashan Willy, who will lead Polycom's global systems engineering team. Willy, who reports to Tracey Newell, Polycom's executive vice president of global sales, came from Juniper, where he was vice president of systems engineering, worldwide commercial business, and previously directed worldwide strategy and planning for Cisco's collaboration business.

"We're delighted to welcome Greg, Joe, Dean, Pete and Ashan to Polycom," said Newell in a statement. "All join Polycom with stellar reputations in the industry. We look forward to their leadership as we increase our coverage, expand our reach, and further our vision of driving the future of video collaboration for enterprises in North America and globally."

Polycom has seen frequent executive changes in the past two years as it adjusts its software, collaboration and video strategies to compete more effectively with Cisco and other smaller video and IP technology competitors. Among other recent hires was Dan Sibille, who became vice president of North America channels last fall.

Key to Polycom's go-to-market strategy is vendor partnerships, and it recently confirmed new arrangements with Lenovo, IBM and others, as well as a wholesale video-as-a-service offering, hosted by Polycom service provider praters using Polycom's RealPresence Network.

Polycom earlier this week also reported record fourth quarter 2011 and fiscal 2011 earnings. For the fourth quarter ending Dec. 31, Polycom posted $407 million in revenue, compared to $340 million in the year-ago quarter, and profit of $50 million, compared to $33 million a year earlier. For the fiscal year 2011, Polycom had revenue of $1.5 billion, up from $1.2 billion in 2010, and profit of $136 million, up from $68 million in 2010.