Former Dell CTO Perez Takes Top Tech Job With JPMorgan

Paul Perez, the tech visionary hired by Dell to build an architecture to do battle with archrival Cisco, has taken a job as managing director of global technology at JPMorgan Chase & Co., one of the banks providing debt financing for Dell’s acquisition of EMC.

Perez quietly left Dell and took the job at JPMorgan last month, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Perez became enterprise chief technology officer at Dell in March 2015, lured to the Round Rock, Texas-based company after a little more than three years at Cisco Systems, where he ran the UCS server business, and oversaw development of the ill-fated Invicta all-flash line. Perez spent 1984-2011 at Hewlett-Packard, ending as vice president and chief technologist in the company's server business.

[Related: 5 Cultural Questions EMC Employees Are Asking About Life At Dell]

Michael Goldstein, president and CEO of LAN Infotech, a Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based solution provider that works with Dell, said Dell is going to need a strong executive to drive tech integration in the new merged company.

"These are things we in the channel are eager to find out about," Goldstein said, "but the time has to be right for them, also. I don't think anyone at the top, or in the middle of the top, is safe, because there's so much overlap. We'll see how all the pieces fit in, but I wouldn't be surprised if they operate the businesses as usual, as two separate companies for a while until they get things sorted out."

Dell’s more than $62 billion acquisition of EMC is expected to close before the end of October.

"As we consider candidates for this position, Dell will rely on its strong and deep bench of technology and business leaders to continue to prepare us for our next phase of growth," a Dell spokesman said in an email to CRN about the position that Perez left.

Robert Hormuth, a Dell Fellow, will be the interim head of Dell's CTO team, the spokesman said.

JPMorgan did not respond to a request for comment and Perez could not be reached before publication time.