30 Notable IT Executive Moves: September 2012

September Shifts

The year's been a brisk one so far for notable IT executive moves, and if September was any indication, that pace won't let up as the industry shifts into fall and begins to focus on calendar 2013 planning and execution. From several moves atop major storage and infrastructure companies to various solution providers confirming new leadership, here's what caught CRN's eye for the month of September.

Ginni Rometty

The changing of the guard at IBM is now fully complete, thanks to Virginia "Ginni" Rometty's succession of Sam Palmisano as IBM board chairman. Rometty became CEO of Big Blue back in January, but as of Oct. 1 she is president, CEO and chairman, following her election by IBM's board in mid-September. Palmisano will officially retire from IBM in December, before which he'll serve as a senior advisor to the company.

Sean Maloney

Sean Maloney was long considered to be a potential successor to Intel CEO Paul Otellini, but in mid-September, Intel confirmed that Maloney, who's spent 30 years at the chip giant and was most recently executive vice president and chairman of Intel China, will retire in January 2013. Maloney took a leave of absence from Intel in February 2010 after suffering a stroke and then returned to the company in January 2011.

Robert Youngjohns

Autonomy was one of the most controversial HP acquisitions in years -- a $10.3 billion spend by the technology giant during the reign of ex-CEO Leo Apotheker that's since seen stalled growth and a revolving door of leadership. As of mid-September, it belongs to Robert Youngjohns, who joined HP as senior vice president and general manager, Autonomy and Information Management Business Unit. Youngjohns was most recently at Microsoft, which he joined in 2007 and where he served as president, North America business.

John Legere

John Legere saw Global Crossing, where he was CEO from 2001 to 2010, through both its bankruptcy and re-emergence as a service provider power. That experience running troubled companies should serve him well at T-Mobile USA, to which he was appointed CEO in mid-September. He succeeded Jim Alling, who'd served as the interim CEO of the Deutsche Telekom-owned service provider since June following the abrupt exit of former CEO Philipp Humm.

Kris Hagerman

Several of the industry's major security companies have changed top executives this year, and that includes Sophos, which named Kris Hagerman its new CEO in early September. Hagerman replaced Steve Munford, who became non-executive chairman of Sophos' board and comes to Sophos from Corel, where he was CEO since 2008. Hagerman earlier in his career ran Symantec's data center management business as group president and also worked at Veritas in executive roles before its acquisition by Symantec.

Wes Wasson

Citrix Chief Marketing Officer and Senior Vice President Wes Wasson has begun a transition out of the company, Citrix confirmed in a Sept. 14 filing with the SEC. Wasson told Citrix of his desire to "begin working on plans for a new startup focused on social entrepreneurship, applying his business and technology experience to help people impacted by poverty, especially in the poorest countries of the world," according Citrix. He will step down as CMO effective Oct. 1 and will be senior vice president of strategy into the first half of 2013.

Thomas Seifert

The ongoing talent exodus at AMD continued in mid-September with word that Thomas Seifert, senior vice president and chief financial officer, had resigned. Seifert's seen a lot at AMD, including during his stint as interim CEO from January 2011 to August 2011. Devinder Kumar, AMD's senior vice president and corporate controller, will serve as interim CFO.

Mike Rayfield

A big exit at Nvidia: Mike Rayfield, who ran the company's mobile business unit as general manager, left the company right at the end of August. Details are still scant, but Rayfield had been running Nvidia's mobile development for seven years and has been an important figure behind industry adoption of Nvidia's Tegra processors.

Mike Fey

More security moving and shaking: McAfee in mid-September confirmed Mike Fey as its new global chief technology officer, in which he'll work with McAfee's various engineering and go-to-market teams. Fey reports to McAfee Co-President Todd Gebhart, and he has been with Intel-owned McAfee since 2007, most recently as chief of field engineering and advanced technology organizations.

Jason Zander

Microsoft has moved a number of key executives to its Azure cloud platform team recently, and one of the latest was Jason Zander, corporate vice president of Microsoft's visual studio engineering team. Zander will be corporate vice president of development for the Azure group. He's been with Microsoft since 1992.

Manouch Moshayedi

One of several major chief executive changes at storage, infrastructure and components companies happened at STEC, whose CEO and chairman, Manouch Moshayedi, resigned in mid-September. The SEC had filed insider trading charges against Moshayedi in July, and while he will remain with the SSD specialist as founder and as a board member, Mark Moshayedi, who was president, COO and chief technical officer, is now interim CEO.