Former HPE GreenLake US GM David Twohy Takes Job At Hybrid IT High-Flyer Ensono

‘This is an opportunity to help our customers transform their entire IT environment from mainframe to cloud and everything in between,’ says Ensono Senior Vice President David Twohy. ‘Ensono is very uniquely positioned to deliver all those services end to end. I am super excited and energized by this new role.’

Former Hewlett Packard Enterprise GreenLake North America Vice President and General Manager David Twohy, one of the original driving forces behind the HPE GreenLake pay-per-use model, has taken a job as senior vice president, strategic accounts, for hybrid IT solution provider Ensono.

Twohy, a highly respected 19-year HPE services veteran who evangelized the pay-per-use model as far back as 2012, is now overseeing the top 25 strategic accounts in North America for Ensono, which was acquired by global investment firm KKR & Co. just last month.

“It’s my dream job,” said Twohy, noting the new post allows him to leverage his expertise in deploying a wide range of services to help customers accelerate their digital transformation. “This is an opportunity to help our customers transform their entire IT environment from mainframe to cloud and everything in between. Ensono is very uniquely positioned to deliver all those services end to end. I am super excited and energized by this new role.”

Ensono, in fact, has established itself over the last several years as one of the premier providers of hybrid IT from its original strong hold as a mainframe service provider to a full-fledged cloud powerhouse with deep Microsoft Azure and AWS services. That combination helped Ensono- which weighs in at about $750 million in annual sales- to deliver robust growth in 2020, even in the midst of the global pandemic. The Chicago, Illinois headquartered company’s sweet spot is customers in the $1 billion to $10 billion annual sales range looking to accelerate digital transformation.

Twohy’s experience developing the pay-per-use GreenLake model could be a big benefit as Ensono provides customers with an end to end consumption based model from remote offices to the data center to multiple clouds. Ensono, in fact, can provide a full as-a-service infrastructure model for customers.

“By definition the as-a-service model puts you on the same side of the table as the customer,” said Twohy. “At the end of the day, I can’t bill you if you are not consuming what I provide. The as-a-service model really focuses you in on a deep understanding of customer requirements and solutions that help customers achieve the business outcomes they are looking for. In a standard vendor-customer relationship that doesn’t happen. It’s about selling a box or some software. We’re in it together with the customer in the as-a-service model,”

Twohy said he is focused at the outset on ensuring that the top 25 accounts have rich and robust strategic account plans with alignment to the full breadth and depth of Ensono’s resources. “Ultimately myself and my team are looking to help customers accelerate, de-risk, simplify and fund their digital transformation initiatives,” he said.

The global pandemic has accelerated the digital transformation of many of Ensono’s customers, said Twohy. “The pandemic, in many cases, amplified those efforts and initiatives because the world had to change,” he said. “We all had to learn how to work remotely. New services needed to be deployed. Many customers were looking to accelerate exiting the data center business and the infrastructure management business. What we are seeing from a market standpoint is an increase in demand for the types of services that we provide. It is no accident that Ensono is growing as fast as it is.”

Twohy said he was attracted to the Ensono opportunity by its impressive executive leadership team including CEO Jeff VonDeylen, President Marc Capri and Senior Vice President and Managing Director of North America Paola Doebel, a former HPE colleague who joined Ensono one year ago.

Twohy, who will report to Doebel, said the Ensono management team’s commitment to growing the business was a key factor in his decision to join the company. “That is so incredibly energizing,” he said. “From top to bottom, everyone at Ensono is committed to growth and to customers for life. That’s a really powerful one-two punch.”

Mike Strohl, CEO of Entisys360, a California-based HPE Platinum partner that is seeing dramatic everything-as-a-service sales growth, said it is not surprising that Twohy landed with a solution provider driving everything as-a-service growth. “This as-a-service market is growing dramatically,” he said.”It is our highest growth service category as a company right now. My total services busines in 2020 increased by 100 percent. This year it will be up another 50-80 percent A good portion of that is as-a-service framework whether it is managed services or (HPE) GreenLake.”

Strohl credited Twohy as leading the charge on the pay-per-use sales model as far back as 2012. “It was Dave that fought to get the GreenLake model put in place,” he said. “In the beginning there was a lot of challenges. Dave was the first one at HPE to stand side by side with us and work through those challenges. Dave figured it out, stuck with the model and refined it and refined it. “

Market research indicates that as many as 85 percent of customers are now looking to make as-a-service IT purchases, said Twohy. “Everybody is looking at getting out of managing infrastructure and data centers,” he said. “That is a very consistent theme. That’s similar to what we saw in my HPE days with GreenLake. At Ensono, our customers are facing the same challenges and have very similar interests in terms of shifting to as-a-service models. It is extremely natural for me to talk to these customers to help them accelerate their digital transformation journeys.”

Twohy said he is already “off and running” helping customers leverage the full breadth and depth of Ensono’s as-a-service offerings. “We have great people, great leadership and great energy,” he said. “I’m excited to lead the team and work with customers to help them on their digital transformation journeys.”