Dimension Data Taps Longtime SAP Exec Wainwright As Americas CEO
Systems integrator Dimension Data has found its next Americas CEO months after experiencing widespread turnover at the executive level.
Ross Wainwright, former EVP and chief customer officer of SAP's S/4HANA Cloud division, will fill the position originally vacated by Mark Slaga, who left the company in December.
Dimension Data, No. 10 on the CRN Solution Provider 500, was, as of late 2016, pushing to centralize its leadership under one global umbrella, with one top sales executive assigned to each region.
Wainwright, who also served as North America COO and global head of financial services at SAP, will report to Dimension Data's global CEO Jason Goodall.
"The Americas is an important region for Dimension Data and the wider NTT Group: almost one-third of our clients are hosted in America," Goodall said in a statement. "In addition, technology is changing the world in ways we have never seen before, and we already have the offerings and structure in place to drive all levels of business with Ross."
Dimension Data's global CEO Brett Dawson suddenly resigned in June 2016. Dawson's exit came amid a wave of layoffs that reportedly affected customer service, alliances, solutions engineers, sales and managed services positions.
In January, Dimension Data's North American President Waheed Choudry left the company; he eventually landed at Presidio, where he now serves as president of Presidio West.
NTT Data acquired Dimension Data in 2010 and, in the last two years, the solution provider has been dealing with executive departures, layoffs and focus on cost-cutting – including some short-term incentive bonuses. Wainright could provide some stability to the Americas unit and help focus the company's efforts in the U.S.
As a top leader of SAP's North American Services business unit, Wainwright led more than 3,400 sales, consulting and education professionals. SAP in May promised to ramp up its channel sales effort around the cloud-based ERP application.
"I’m honored to become part of Dimension Data, and participate in the exciting transformation journey ahead," Wainwright said in a statement. "The Americas region represents one of the largest and most innovative technology markets in the world, and it will be a privilege to be part of the team to contribute to the overall success of Dimension Data."
Dimension Data offers a wide array of technical, consulting, cloud and managed services, with expertise in cybersecurity, customer experience, business intelligence and analytics, hybrid IT and networking. The company is a long-established Cisco partner and one of vendor's top solution providers globally.