30 Notable IT Executive Moves: April 2020

CEO shakeups at AT&T, SAP, Red Hat and Optiv Security were among the biggest IT executive moves in the month of April. CRN recaps all the big moves the IT channel should know about.

Big Moves At IBM, HPE, Intel, Mimecast And More

April saw changes in the top leadership at AT&T, SAP, Red Hat and Optiv Security, but there were many more notable executive moves throughout the industry last month.

Other companies that had big personnel changes included Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Intel, Mimecast, IBM, Toshiba, LogMeIn, McAfee, Dell Technologies and Nvidia.

What follows are the 30 notable IT executive moves from April 2020 based on formal announcements made by companies and changes noted on LinkedIn.

Randall Stephenson

Randall Stephenson, AT&T's chairman and CEO of 13 years, will retire from the carrier's top spot on July 1, AT&T announced. Stepping up to lead the telecom giant will be John Stankey, AT&T's current president and chief operating officer, according to the Dallas-based company.

Stephenson will continue to serve as executive chairman of AT&T's Board of Directors until January 2021 to ensure a smooth transition, the carrier said. Stankey will become a board member on June 1. The announcement of Stephenson's successor follows the carrier's plans to return to its telecom roots with the help of activist investor, Elliott Management.

A longtime AT&T executive, Stankey joined the company in 1985 and has worked across many different business segments, including corporate strategy and technology, operations, and media and entertainment. He most recently served as CEO of WarnerMedia until he was promoted to president and COO of AT&T in 2019.

Jennifer Morgan

Jennifer Morgan, one of SAP’s two co-CEOs since October, stepped down and left the company as the company opted for a single CEO management structure with current co-CEO Christian Klein in charge.

The move means that once again SAP will have a single CEO as it did for more than five years under Bill McDermott, who left SAP in October to take the CEO job at ServiceNow. Klein and Morgan were immediately named as co-CEOs upon McDermott’s departure.

Morgan had been with SAP since 2004. Before being named co-CEO, she was president of the company’s Cloud Business Group, overseeing the company’s Qualtrics, SuccessFactors, Ariba, Fieldglass and Concur products. Klein has been with SAP since 2000 and was serving as the company’s chief operating officer when he was named co-CEO in October.

Paul Cormier

Red Hat’s longtime product chief Paul Cormier replaced James Whitehurst as CEO, taking charge of the open source software leader as it enters a crucial phase in establishing its identity as an IBM subsidiary.

With Whitehurst finally stepping into the prominent role of IBM president, Cormier becomes responsible for balancing the duel Red Hat missions declared after the landmark $34 billion acquisition—maintaining Red Hat’s independence as a vendor of technology used across all major clouds while leveraging that technology to distinguish and accelerate IBM’s hybrid cloud business.

As Red Hat’s leading product visionary for almost two decades, Cormier drove more than 25 acquisitions during that tenure. He expanded the business from almost solely a Linux provider to a comprehensive open source software vendor that’s an enterprise powerhouse not only in operating systems, but cutting-edge technologies like cloud, containers and DevOps.

Kevin Lynch

Optiv Security tapped 20-year Deloitte veteran Kevin Lynch to take over as CEO of the world’s largest pure-play security solution provider.

The Denver-based company praised Lynch for his 30 years of strategic, operational and technology experience as well as his proven track record of delivering growth and exceptional financial returns. Lynch will replace Dan Burns, who co-founded Accuvant in 2002 and had led Optiv since its formation from the 2015 merger of Accuvant and FishNet Security.

Lynch was most recently a senior partner at London-based Deloitte where he was focused on growing the firm’s mergers and acquisitions services revenue and played a key role in rearchitecting the business. He served many of firm’s largest clients as an advisory partner in Deloitte’s technology infrastructure, cloud, cybersecurity and computing segments.

Larry White

Toshiba American Business Solutions appointed Chief Revenue Officer Larry White to COO, giving him more oversight and strategic planning responsibilities across the company.

White joined Toshiba in 1996 as vice president of operations and acquisitions for Toshiba Office Products Acquisition Company, which is now known as Toshiba Business Solutions.

"Larry White has consistently led his teams to deliver high levels of revenue growth throughout his tenure at Toshiba," said Toshiba America Business Solutions President and CEO Scott Maccabe in a statement. "Expanding Larry’s responsibilities will help Toshiba achieve our overarching P&L objectives while accelerating our strategic expansion within software solutions, and professional services."

Howard Boville

IBM announced the appointment of former Bank of America technology executive Howard Boville as the head of the company's cloud business.

As senior vice president of IBM Cloud, Boville overlooks IBM's network of more than 60 cloud data centers across 19 countries, according to the company.

Boville was most recently chief technology officer at Bank of America, where he worked for eight years. Prior to that, he served in the global services division of British Telecom.

Phil Davis

Phil Davis, who oversees the $23 billion hybrid IT business for Hewlett Packard Enterprise, stepped down in April to accept a new position at Amazon Web Services in a move announced earlier this month.

Davis, who spent nearly six years at HPE, decided to accept another job in order to relocate to Australia where his wife and two children have been living. The return to Asia Pacific is a coming home for Davis who, as vice president and general manager of enterprise solutions for Dell, lived in Singapore.

On his LinkedIn page, Davis said he pushed a “180-degree turnaround” in the Dell Asia Pacific and Japan business. “Managed a P&L of $3.4 billion and led an extended team of 900 directs and 200 dotted-line reports,” he wrote. “Took Dell from third place to its first-ever [No.] 1 spot in server, networking and storage space in Asia Pacific and Japan region within two years.”

Jay Snyder

After more than 20 years in top roles at Dell Technologies, Jay Snyder is taking his talents to software management specialist New Relic as its new chief customer officer.

Snyder is stepping into the roles of executive vice president and chief customer officer, reporting to president and chief operating officer Michael Christenson. Snyder will be responsible for managing New Relic’s global customer base including its Global Customer Success & Services, Support, Education, Expert Services, Renewals, Alliances & Channels, and Customer Solutions organizations.

Snyder has been Dell Technologies’ Global Alliances leader since 2015, focused on bringing differentiated offerings to the market via strategic partnerships with systems integrators, outsourcers and cloud service providers. Prior to Dell’s historic acquisition of EMC in 2016 for $67 billion, Snyder ran EMC’s Americas Services organization and was the first chief operations officer of Americas Sales and Customer Operations.

Kathleen Curry

McAfee filled the global channel chief role after a nearly two-year vacancy with the hire of former Apple sales executive Kathleen Curry.

The Santa Clara, Calif.-based platform security vendor has tasked Curry with bringing together McAfee’s channel, operations, alliances and OEM teams as well as expanding the company’s partner program initiatives to accommodate increased remote work as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. McAfee had operated without a global channel chief since Richard Steranka left the company in August 2018.

Curry most recently spent five-and-a-half years as a sales executive at Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple, where she was primarily responsible for global client development and the company’s Enterprise Design Lab, according to her LinkedIn page. She spent her first 14 months at Apple supporting global alliances.

Carola Cazenave

IBM North American channel chief Carola Cazenave left the company to take a job with Pegasystems as a vice president and general manager.

Cazenave, who had served as vice president of the IBM North America Partner Ecosystem since April 2019, left the company at the end of April. Judd Ficklen, a 24-year IBM veteran who managed IBM’s relationship with distributor Tech Data, took over as North America channel chief. Ficklen wasn’t immediately available for comment about his new role.

Ficklen joined IBM in 1996 and held a number of sales, management and executive positions before being named VP of IBM Global Financing in 2009. He was named general manager of IBM’s enterprise and commercial business in North America in February 2016 before becoming global managing director of IBM’s relationship with Tech Data in May 2018.

Dee Dee Acquista

BeyondTrust, a provider of privileged access management software, appointed former SentinelOne executive Dee Dee Acquista as senior vice president of global channels and alliances.

Acquista was most recently the head of worldwide channel sales at SentinelOne. Prior to that, she worked in channel roles at Proofpoint alongside BeyondTrust's current chief revenue officer, Carl Helle.

"Her vast experience will guide BeyondTrust and our global partners, providing the technical direction, sales alignment, business enablement, and the financial rewards that will assure them that BeyondTrust is a trusted partner," Helle said in a statement.

Bradon Rogers

Mimecast appointed former Symantec executive Bradon Rogers as senior vice president of global sales engineering, making him responsible for the company's global sales engineering teams.

Rogers most recently led global sales engineering, product marketing and sales enablement organizations at DevOps startup D2iQ. Prior to that, he was vice president of worldwide sales engineering and product marketing at Symantec.

“Bradon has worked for some of the most established companies in the cybersecurity industry. He’s very familiar leading large teams across the globe and working with them to ensure they understand the value in aligning corporate strategy and product positioning to the business-critical challenges organizations are facing today,” Dino DiMarino, chief revenue officer at Mimecast, said in a statement.

Rick Ribas

LogMeIn appointed former Intelisys Communications executive Rick Ribas as vice president of global channels, a newly created role that will have him focus on creating new channel partnerships.

Ribas was most recently senior vice president of national partner sales and national channel alliances at Intelisys, where he had worked since 2010.

"Rick has extensive leadership experience in channel and partner sales and has achieved significant success globally as a leader and advocate for channel support and resources within the companies where he has worked," Chris Manton-Jones, senior vice president of worldwide sales at LogMeIn, said in a statement. "We believe his business acumen and leadership abilities will contribute significantly to the success of our partner and channel sales programs for our Unified Communications & Collaboration, Identity & Access Management and Customer Engagement & Support businesses."

Dave Ward

Dave Ward, Cisco's CTO of engineering and chief architect, will take over as CEO at next-gen network service provider PacketFabric. PacketFabric's former CEO Chad Milam will remain on board as the company’s president and COO.

Ward will bring his extensive background and patents in software-defined networking, cloud, and virtualization to the startup as it expands its cloud connectivity prowess, PacketFabric said.

Ward spent more than eight years at Cisco. Prior to his latest role as CTO of engineering, Ward was a Cisco Fellow and chief architect of the vendor's service provider division. Ward also served as CTO and chief architect of Juniper Networks' Platform Systems Division for two years.

Leslie Culbertson

Leslie Culbertson, a longtime Intel executive who oversaw the company's response to Spectre, Meltdown and other processor vulnerabilities, has retired.

The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company confirmed to CRN that Culbertson, who had been Intel's executive vice president and general manager of product assurance and security, recently stepped down after working at the chipmaker for 41 years. Taking her place as head of Intel's Product Assurance and Security group is Joshua Walden, a 37-year company veteran.

Culbertson had been the head of Intel's Product Assurance and Security group, also known as IPAS, since it was formed in January 2018 in response to the Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities that prompted major software and hardware fixes for the company's processors. During that time, Culbertson had been a top company spokesperson on security updates and vulnerability disclosures.

Nigel Gilhespy

Exclusive Networks appointed Juniper Networks veteran Nigel Gilhespy as global head of professional services and consulting.

Most recently, Gilhespy was head of professional, advisory and managed services for the EMEA region at Optiv Security. Prior to that he held roles at Equinix, Palo Alto Networks, IBM Global Technology Services and Juniper Networks.

"Nigel has the experience we need to take on this new position having shown great leadership and innovation in similar roles for hardware and software vendors, as well as service providers and channel organizations," Andy Travers, executive vice president of worldwide sales and marketing at Exclusive Networks, said in a statement.

Thomas Hansen

Top VMware Carbon Black go-to-market leader Thomas Hansen left the endpoint security organization after nearly three years to join robotic process automation vendor UiPath.

Hansen joined Carbon Black in July 2017 as the company’s first-ever chief revenue officer, and later became the Waltham, Mass.-based company’s chief operating officer before it was bought by VMware for $2.1 billion in October 2019. Following the deal, Hansen became senior vice president of security operations for VMware’s Security Division, responsible for enterprise, corporate, SMB and channel sales.

Hansen’s last day at VMware Carbon Black was April 3, according to the organization, and his appointment as UiPath’s chief revenue officer was announced April 28. Former Secureworks Chief Revenue Officer Geoff Hayden started at VMware Carbon Black in February and since Hansen’s departure has taken on many of his direct reports and now runs worldwide sales, the company said.

Curt Smith

Nvidia appointed Microsoft veteran Curt Smith as vice president and GPU datacenter architect.

Smith was most recently a partner architect for high-performance computing and AI infrastructure at Microsoft, where he led infrastructure and services for HPC in Azure, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Smith had spent more than 26 years at Microsoft, where he also served as engineering manager for HPC, general manager for distributed systems platform and general manager for SQL strategy, infrastructure and architecture.

Prior to joining Microsoft in 1993, Smith was an electrical engineer at a company called Stratos Product Development. For four years prior, he was a managing director at Hewlett-Packard Co.

Renaud Perrier

Google Cloud veteran Renaud Perrier joined data protection vendor Virtru as senior vice president of international business development and operations.

Perrier was most recently chief product officer at LumApps. Prior to that he was head of Google Cloud's independent software vendor partnerships for the EMEA and APAC regions.

"Renaud is a tremendous asset and joins us at a time when data has never been more valuable, and privacy has never been more important," Virtru co-founder and CEO John Ackerly said in a statement. "We have seen our product usage in EMEA double year-over-year, and Renaud’s cloud and security expertise will help us further grow internationally, as we continue our mission of unlocking the power of data by creating a world where it is always under your control – everywhere."

Carey Kloss

Intel executive Carey Kloss stepped down from his role in the Artificial Intelligence Products Group and left the company to lead AI startup Analog Inference.

Kloss had most recently served as vice president and general manager of Intel's AI Training Product Group, according to his LinkedIn profile. The AI Products Group had been formed through Intel's 2016 acquisition of Nervana. Intel halted development of the Nervana neural network processors following the company's December 2019 acquisition of Habana Labs.

Kloss, who had served as vice president of hardware engineering at Nervana prior to the acquisition, left Intel roughly one month after his former boss and Nervana co-founder Naveen Rao departed.

Ernest Jones

Red Hat’s newest channel leader, Ernest Jones, is a seasoned IBM and Oracle executive who’s determined not to let the tumultuous time in which he assumes his critical position slow the process of building relationships with Red Hat partners.

Jones stepped into the role of Red Hat’s vice president of North America commercial partners and alliances amid top-level leadership changes at Red Hat and its parent IBM, and the coronavirus pandemic that is creating massive market turbulence and rapidly changing how professionals collaborate with colleagues inside and outside their organizations.

Jones replaced D. Robert Martin, who took the position of president of the field organization of services provider ConvergeOne. Jones was most recently chief revenue officer at startup vVents. Previously, he served in executive roles at Oracle for nearly two years and, before that, IBM, for 17 years.

John Carr

CoreDial hired former VoIP Networks executive John Carr as vice president of cloud services, taking over from Kevin McAllister, who is moving into a new role as principal engineer.

Carr has held executive positions at several tech companies, including VoIP Networks and Broadview Networks, where he served as senior vice president of cloud services.

"His broad and very relevant expertise and achievements in the communications industry are impressive and we’re confident he’ll excel in this role," Alan Rihm, CEO at CoreDial, said in a statement.

Hai Wang

Former NXP Semiconductors executive Hai Wang joined Intel as corporate vice president of product supply chain and external manufacturing.

Wang joined Intel in April after working at NXP Semiconductors for nearly 10 years, according to his LinkedIn profile. He was most recently senior vice president of global technology innovations for NXP Semiconductors.

Previously, he served in sourcing, design and manufacturing executive roles at LSI. Before that, he was vice president of engineering at Flextronics.

Wes Durow, Chief Marketing Officer, Extreme Networks

Wes Durow

Extreme Networks added a CMO to its c-suite, tapping former Mitel chief marketing officer Wes Durow as its new marketing leader.

Durow served as UC provider Mitel's CMO for five years prior to his latest appointment at Extreme Networks. Before that, the longtime marketing executive was vice president of global marketing for Sonus Networks, now known as Ribbon Communications, for over three years. He also held marketing leadership roles at Fonality, now NetFortris, and Avaya.

"[Durow] comes from a similar story to what Extreme is going through with the cloud transition at Mitel," Extreme Networks' COO Norman Rice told CRN. "He's been through the cloud change, he's very experienced, and he'll help us put a front-end on our go-to-market, which we believe is going to be a lot stronger than where we were in the past."

James Mundle

Quantum Tuesday hired James Mundle as its global channel chief with a mandate to expand the company's channel partner strategy and be the channel's executive advocate.

Mundle officially joined San Jose, Calif.-based storage vendor Quantum April 1. Most recently, Mundle spent over three and a half years with Veeam, leaving in late January as vice president of worldwide channel programs. Prior to that, he spent a year as vice president of worldwide channel sales for Seagate's cloud systems and solutions business and spent nearly eight years working with Hewlett Packard Co.'s storage channel business.

Mundle is not Quantum's first global channel chief, although it has been several years since the company had an executive in that role, said Chief Revenue Officer Liz King, who joined the company in March 2019.

Barry Shevlin

Vology CEO Barry Shevlin, who founded and built a nearly $200 million solution provider business, was tapped to lead a new U.S. midmarket technology practice for Skyway Capital Markets LLC.

Shevlin, a financially savvy tech veteran who bootstrapped his business, takes the reins of the new technology practice for Tampa, Fla.-based Skyway just as the economic turmoil from the coronavirus pandemic is taking hold.

Shevlin, who navigated multiple severe economic downturns as CEO, including the 2008 financial meltdown and dot-com bust in 2001, said his new job as a senior managing director advising mid-market technology companies on raising capital, restructuring, and mergers and acquisitions is critical to helping companies survive the pandemic and thrive in the post pandemic economy.

Alyson Crafton

Intel veteran Alyson Crafton left the company to become managing director at Lam Research.

Most recently, she was vice president and general manager in the office of the CIO, according to her LinkedIn profile. Prior to that, she served in executive roles for Intel's IT group, data center solutions group and supply chain IT.

Crafton had worked at Intel for 23 years. She joined in 1996 as a materials program manager and went on to serve several roles around supply chain and IT.

Scott Montgomery

McAfee veteran Scott Montgomery stepped down from his role as vice president of worldwide sales strategy and left the company to become CTO at Federal Resources Corporation.

Montgomery served in the role as head of worldwide sales strategy at McAfee for more than three years, according to his LinkedIn profile. Prior to that, he served as CTO of Americas and public sector while McAfee was under the ownership of Intel. Intel sold McAfee to a private equity firm in 2017.

"After three years and directing over $100 million in OPEX reduction, McAfee is much leaner and with a modernized portfolio – McAfee can dominate everywhere it has an offering," he wrote in a LinkedIn post in April. "For my own part, the private equity experience was a great learning opportunity, but after seeing the effects of the cost reduction (very often first-hand), I’m ready to go back to helping people protect their mission."

Simon West

Magnitude Software, a provider of unified application data management solutions, appointed former Virtustream CMO Simon West as its new chief marketing officer.

Most recently, West was CMO for Cyxtera Technologies. Prior to that, he served in that capacity for Virtustream, SoftLayer Technologies and Terremark.

"Adding Simon, a proven CMO, to our team underscores our intention to advance Magnitude’s position as a data management leader," said Chris Ney, chairman and CEO of Magnitude Software, in a prepared statement. "Simon brings a track record in propelling enterprise technology companies into global leaders. His expertise – combined with that of our existing team – will enable Magnitude to continue our expansion course, and deepen our commitment to enabling our global, blue-chip customer base to readily capitalize on this time of profound digital transformation."

Susan Arthur

Rackspace appointed Hewlett-Packard veteran Susan Arthur to the company's board of directors.

Arthur is currently COO of healthcare technology services company OptumInsight. Prior to that, she served in a variety of leadership roles at NTT Data and DXC Technology. Previously, she spent nearly a decade at Hewlett-Packard, where she served in numerous vice president and general manager roles.

"Susan brings an unmatched blend of operational execution capability, enterprise IT services experience and vertical industry expertise," said Kevin Jones, CEO of Rackspace, in a statement. "We are truly fortunate to have her join the board, and I am looking forward to working with her."