30 Notable IT Executive Moves: January 2011

Moves, Moves and More Moves

January is usually heavy with housecleaning activity, but it's been a while since the industry's seen so many high profile executive changes to kick off the year.

Here's a look at 30 executive moves, all made in January or just before it, with plenty of interest for the channel.

Eric Schmidt

The biggest jaw-dropper of the month came from Mountain View, Calif., where Eric Schmidt confirmed he will step down as CEO of Google. The top dog at Google since August 2001, Schmidt will pass the torch to Google Co-Founder Larry Page, who takes the reins as of April. Schmidt, who oversaw Google's growth into a more than $20 million company with 24,000 global employees, plans to stay on as executive chairman.

Dirk Meyer

In early January, another eyebrow-raiser: Advanced Micro Devices CEO Dirk Meyer resigned from his position, with CFO and senior vice president Thomas Seifert taking over as interim CEO. A 14-year AMD veteran, Meyer assumed command from ex-CEO Hector Ruiz in July 2008, and is credited with righting a ship that in its 2007 fiscal year took a $3.38 billion loss.

AMD's board, however, felt that a new CEO would be better equipped to lead AMD through future challenges, as board chairman Bruce Claflin stated at the time of Meyer's resignation.

Luanne Tierney

No vendor in the networking space has been on a hiring spree quite like Juniper's, which in January alone netted three high-profile executives. Best known to VARs is Luanne Tierney, who left her post as Cisco's top channels marketing exec to become Juniper's new vice president, global partner marketing. Tierney's defection is a big loss for Cisco, as several partners told CRN, because she is highly regarded among the partner community and knows the inner workings of Cisco's channel program and organization.

Brad Brooks

By the time Juniper had announced Tierney, it had already confirmed Brad Brooks as Juniper's new vice president of worldwide enterprise marketing and solutions. Brooks, a 9-year Microsoft veteran, had most recently been Microsoft's vice president of Windows Consumer Marketing and Product Management. Brooks is one of several Microsoft veterans among the top executives Juniper's hired in the past three years. Juniper CEO Kevin Johnson is one, and so is...

Emilio Umeoka

...Emilio Umeoka, formerly president of Microsoft Asia Pacific, who this month became Juniper's new senior vice president, worldwide partners. The role, which formerly belonged to Frank Vitagliano before he took a new position running Juniper's Americas channel relationships, had been open since May 2010.

Bob Muglia

Another month, another feather-ruffling departure at Microsoft, which confirmed in early January that Bob Muglia, president of Microsoft's Servers & Tools Business, would depart. In an e-mail sent by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to employees, Ballmer detailed that Muglia, a 23-year veteran, would leave Microsoft this summer. The move is part of a reported shakeup of Microsoft's Servers & Tools business.

Craig Schlagbaum

A longtime channel presence and best known as the former channel chief of Level 3 Communications, Craig Schlagbaum was in mid-January confirmed as the new vice president of sales, indirect channels, at Comcast Business Services. With Comcast looking to expand its channel footprint, Schlagbaum is tasked with building out an brand new indirect program focused primarily on SMB-sized service customers.

Susan Bostrom

In another major executive departure for Cisco following last year's jump by Tony Bates to Skype, Susan Bostrom, Cisco executive vice president and chief marketing officer, stepped down in late January. Bostrom, a 14-year Cisco veteran, was replaced by Blair Christie, who was most recently Cisco's senior vice president of global corporate communications.

Kristian Theyregod

Kristian Thyregod was a driving force behind EMC's Velocity Partner Program, so when he departed the storage giant in June 2010, it left a hole in EMC's channel leadership. EMC made moves within its channel organization, however, and Thyregod moved on to CA, where he is now senior vice president of global field marketing.

Scott McNealy

When you're a legend in the industry, even seemingly small moves make headlines. Such was the case with ex-Sun Microsystems Chairman Scott McNealy, who in January resurfaced as an advisor to Hardcore Computer, a start-up focused on liquid-cooled systems.

Patricia Hume

The latest in a series of major executive changes at SAP, Patricia Hume stepped down from her post as head of SAP's global indirect sales organization. Neither Hume nor SAP confirmed whether Hume had taken a job with another company, and Fritz Neumeyer, vice president of operations at SAP, took over Hume's duties with the title of head of Volume Reseller and Service Partners.

More HP Changes

When Leo Apotheker took over the top job at Hewlett Packard last year, pundits wondered how much of the HP executive team would remain in place and how many Apotheker lieutenants would be brought in to fill it. So far, there have been only a few notable moves: Michael Mendenhall, chief marketing officer, resigned, while Bill Wohl, a former SAP executive, joined HP as chief communications officer. More recently, HP's Randall Runk, senior vice president of sales for the Technology Solutions Group (TSG), departed HP as well.

HP Shuffles Board

Along with executive changes at HP, the technology giant's board of directors was also shuffled in January. Four of HP's five newly-appointed members, in fact -- former GE CIO Gary Reiner, former Alcatel-Lucent CEO Patricia Russo, former eBay CEO Meg Whitman and AXA Private Equity CEO Dominique Senequier, have close business connections with Apotheker. Former HP board members Lucille Salhany, John Joyce, Robert Ryan and Joel Hyatt all departed in the shuffle.

Peter Hortensius

Amid a few changes at Lenovo, Peter Hortensius was in January named president of Lenovo's Product Group, following his stint as head of Lenovo's Think Product Group. The change came via a leadership shakeup in which Liu Jun, formerly senior vice president and president of the Product Group, received a new assignment as president of Lenovo's new mobile business unit headquartered in Beijing.

Ashish Gupta

Vidyo, one of the hottest emerging companies in the video and UC space, plucked Microsoft veteran Ashish Gupta to be its new chief marketing officer and senior vice president of corporate development. At Microsoft, Gupta was a core member of the team that launched Lync, Microsoft's updated UC suite.

Dan Foster

A changing of the channel chief guard at MegaPath: Dan Foster, a 10-year veteran, exited the service provider to take a position at SolarCity, a solar-systems provider. Foster had been executive vice president of sales and marketing at MegaPath since 2006, moved over to build MegaPath's SMB business following its 2006 merger with Netifice, and then took another channel role in 2008 to overhaul MegaPath's channel program.

Dell Reorg

A mid-January reorganization at Dell saw the company name two new presidents of business units. Steve Schuckenbrock became president of Dell Services, replacing Peter Altabef, who left the company following the integration of Perot Systems into Dell. Elsewhere, Paul Bell is now president of Dell's new Public-Large Enterprise group, which consolidates the previously separate Public and Large Enterprise units into one. Both Schuckenbrock and Bell report to Dell CEO Michael Dell.

Bob Davis

Just before the new year, Kaseya confirmed Bob Davis as chief marketing officer. A longtime channel executive who'd previously had stints at Novell, CA Technologies and many others, Davis actually joined Kaseya back in October, as part of an ongoing executive bulk-up for the MSP.

Craig McCaw

A mobile phone industry legend, Craig McCaw confirmed in early January he had stepped down as chairman of Clearwire, which makes high-speed wireless networks using WiMax technology. McCaw's abrupt departure raised new concerns about the viability of Clearwire, whose struggles to fund the building and operation of its WiMax network have been widely reported.

Ben Gibson

In an impressive grab away from its biggest competitor, Aruba Networks in early January hired Cisco veteran Ben Gibson to be Aruba's new chief marketing officer. Gibson, a 20-year industry veteran, was most recently vice president of data center and virtualization marketing at Cisco.

James McNiel

It was a rough autumn for FalconStor Software, whose president, CEO and chairman, ReiJane Huai, abruptly resigned in January following allegations of improper payments. At the time, James McNiel, then FalconStor's chief strategy officer, was named interim president and CEO, and in January, FalconStor confiremd that McNiel had received the full appointment.

Bill O'Neill

A service provider crossover: Bill O'Neill joined global IP solutions provider Global Crossing in mid-January, taking over as vice president, federal sales. O'Neill, based in Reston, Va., was most recently vice president of Qwest Government Services, and before that, was a nine-year Nortel Networks veteran.

Richard McBee

Eyes turned to Mitel's executive search following word, in September, that longtime CEO Don Smith would exit the company. Mitel found its man in early January, however, naming Richard McBee its new CEO. A 20-year IT and telecom veteran, McBee had most recently been president of the Communications & Enterprise Group at Danaher Corp., based in Washington D.C.

Peter DiMarco

Among a spate of major moves for regional and national solution providers in January, Cleveland-based MCPc hired Peter DiMarco, a former Ingram Micro vice president, as its new executive vice president of sales. DiMarco, well known to Ingram VARs and a 25-year veteran of the distributor, had left Ingram in a management shakeup last year.

Philip Rydzewski

Just before the new year, Houston-based national solution provider INX named Philip Rydzewski as its new senior vice president and chief financial officer. INX, which spent much of 2010 in financial restatement efforts, gets a practiced hand in Rydzewski, who was most recently chief accounting officer for HealthMarkets, and before that, an executive with HMS Holdings Corp and Catalyst Health solutions.

Carousel's Appointments

One of the country's top Avaya VARs, Exeter, R.I.-based Carousel Industries has been on an acquisitions tear lately, and has also made some big moves to bolster its executive team. In early January, Carousel confirmed seven vice president-level appointments, from Dan Whalen's move from director of engineering to vice president of engineering, to Kelly Harman's appointment as vice president of marketing.

Emil Sayegh

Every tier one vendor wants a piece of the cloud computing story, including HP, which in mid-January hired Emil Sayegh away from cloud specialist Rackspace. Sayegh's role at HP, which was reported by The Wall Street Journal and other outlets, is to oversee how HP markets its cloud services to customers.

Pierre Nanterme

As the new year dawned, Pierre Nanterme officially assumed the role as CEO of Accenture, one of the world's top systems integrators. Nanterme succeeded William D. Green, who had been Accenture's CEO since 2004. He had most recently been group CEO of Accenture's global Financial Services operating group, and is a 28-year veteran of the company.

David Rice

Security expert and NSA alumnus David Rice was named Apple's new global head of security earlier in January, according to All Things Digital, which reported the move. Apple has not confirmed Rice's hiring, but according to All Things Digital, Rice will start at Apple in March, and is the latest high-profile security appointment at Apple. Rice is currently executive director of the Monterey Group, a security consultancy, and a senior research fellow at the U.S. Cyber Consequences Unit.

Stephen Vobbe

Glowpoint earlier in January made a major grab in Stephen Vobbe, now its senior vice president of sales and marketing. Vobbe, who was the Director of Cisco's TelePresence Solutions team and before that, a key member of Tandberg's executive team before its acquisition by Cisco, will in his new role lead worldwide sales, channels, marketing, analyst relations and business development at Glowpoint, as well as sit on its executive committee.