30 Notable IT Executive Moves: April 2021

April saw big personnel changes for channel executives at companies like Check Point Software Technologies, Okta, Armis and CyCognito. Last month also saw a few big executive shakeups, with new CEOs being installed at Aveva Group and Ricoh North America.

New Channel Execs, CEOs and More

Several companies announced the appointment of new channel executives in April, including Check Point Software Technologies, Okta and Armis, but those weren’t the only big personnel moves.

There were also a few major executive shakeups last month, with new CEOs being appointed at Aveva Group and Ricoh North America. Other companies that experienced personnel changes included Hitachi Vantara, NTT Security, VMware, Intel and Unisys.

What follows are 30 notable IT executive moves from April 2021.

Craig Hayman

Industrial software vendor Aveva Group announced that its CEO Craig Hayman has resigned for personal reasons so that he can return to the United States. He is being replaced by Peter Herweck, a Schneider Electric and Siemens veteran who was previously vice chairman of Aveva’s board.

Hayman served as Aveva’s CEO for more than three years. Prior to that, he was COO of Boston-based industrial software vendor PTC and, before that, was president of eBay’s enterprise business.

Herweck was most recently a member of the executive committee and executive vice president of industrial automation at Schneider Electric, where he worked for more than five years. Prior to that, he spent roughly 20 years at Siemens, where he was most recently CEO of the company’s Process Industries and Drives Division, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Pat Gelsinger

Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger resigned from VMware’s board of directors, two months after he left the top leadership post at the virtualization giant to lead the chipmaker.

Palo Alto, Calif.-based VMware said in a regulatory filing that Gelsinger notified the company of his resignation two days prior. The company said it was Gelsinger’s “personal decision,” “given the demands of his new position as CEO of Intel.”

Intel named Gelsinger as its eighth CEO in January, which brought his nearly nine-year tenure as VMware’s CEO to an end in mid-February when he started at the chipmaker. Gelsinger, who previously worked at Intel for 30 years, also joined Intel’s board of directors. When the announcement was made, VMware said that Gelsinger would continue to serve on VMware’s board.

Carsten Bruhn

Ricoh appointed company veteran Carsten Bruhn as president and CEO of Ricoh North America. Bruhn is taking over for Joji Tokunaga, who became head of the company’s Asian Pacific Markets and Latin America regions earlier this year.

Bruhn was most recently corporate vice president for Ricoh Global Services. Prior to that, he led Ricoh Business Solutions. He joined the company in 2005, according to his LinkedIn profile.

“The opportunity that lies ahead for Ricoh, our partners and customers is incredible,” said Bruhn in a statement. “Customer behaviors, the increasingly changing workforce and the speed of digital transformation are driving toward the need for new business models, including digital services and subscription models, to name a few. And there’s so much to be energized about in North America specifically. We have a tremendous customer base, a passionately dedicated team and a network of dealer partners who share our commitment to solving challenging business problems today and into the future.”

Matt Gyde

NTT Security CEO Matt Gyde resigned after creating one of the largest security solution provider businesses in the world over the past 15 years.

During his 22 months as CEO, Gyde guided Tokyo-based NTT Security through its $315 million purchase of application security vendor WhiteHat Security as well as the complete integration of security assets within NTT Data, Dimension Data, NTT Communications, Solutionary, Earthwave and others into a single channel security behemoth with $1.6 billion of revenue and 3,000 employees across 58 countries.

Gyde spent 15 years at the NTT family of companies, including nearly six leading the security business for NTT subsidiary Dimension Data, No. 13 on the 2019 CRN Solution Provider 500, before ascending to the NTT Security CEO role in June 2019. Gyde’s departure coincides with the exit of Jason Goodall, who led Dimension Data and then NTT Ltd for some five years before handing the reins over to Abhijit Dubey.

Roger Lvin

Hitachi Vantara announced the appointment of three executives: Roger Lvin as president of the Digital Solutions Business Unit, Radhika Krishnan as chief product officer and Frank Antonysamy as chief digital solutions officer.

Lvin was most recently senior vice president and global market head for digital operations at Cognizant, where he worked for nearly 16 years. Krishnan was most recently executive vice president and general manager of software at 3D Systems Corporation and prior to that was vice president and general manager of software-defined infrastructure, networking and telco at Lenovo. Antonysamy was most recently vice president and IoT global markets leader at Cognizant, where he worked for nearly 18 years.

“I’m thrilled about the potential of these leaders to help our clients accelerate their data-driven transformations,” Gajen Kandiah, CEO of Hitachi Vantara, said in a statement.

Dawn Jones

Intel appointed company veteran Dawn Jones as the company’s new chief diversity and inclusion officer. Jones is taking over from Barbara Whye, who departed for Apple last year.

Jones has spent 24 years at Intel, and she has previously served as director of policy and external partnerships, public affairs manager and in media relations roles.

“Dawn Jones is a leading advocate of actionable change who has demonstrated deep expertise and experience leading diversity initiatives on a global scale,” said Sandra Rivera, Intel’s chief people officer, in a statement. ”Her experience inside and outside of Intel will enable her to lead this critical component of Intel‘s business and global impact strategy to create innovative solutions through the advancement of diversity, inclusion and corporate responsibility at every level in our company and the broader industry.”

Maureen Sweeny

Unisys made three executive appointments: Maureen Sweeny as senior vice president and chief revenue officer, Dwayne L. Allen as senior vice president and CTO, and Gene Chao as senior vice president and general manager of the company’s ClearPath Forward business.

Sweeny was most recently executive vice president and chief development officer at food-service and hospitality company Delaware North. Prior to that, she was chief commercial officer at gaming company Aristocrat Technologies. She also held several roles at IBM.

Allen was most recently a global digital strategist at Microsoft, and prior to that was chief information officer at building products manufacturer Masonite International. Chao was most recently at IBM, where he served as managing partner and general manager of the company’s cognitive process re-engineering and intelligence workflows division.

Anu Subramanian

CloudCheckr, a provider of cloud infrastructure analysis software, appointed former Veracode executive Anu Subramanian as CTO.

Subramanian was most recently vice president of engineering, data and operations at Veracode, where she worked for five years. Prior to that, she worked in engineering leadership roles at Carbon Black, Carbonite and Cisco Systems.

“We’re excited to welcome Anu to the CloudCheckr team to drive our market-leading investment in the CloudCheckr platform to deeply support our customers’ cloud journey,” said Tim McKinnon, CEO of CloudCheckr, in a statement. “Anu brings a fresh perspective and wealth of experience to the rapidly evolving cloud management market, and our team is eager to see the new heights we’ll reach together.”

Tim Tully

Splunk announced that CTO and senior vice president Tim Tully is resigning and leaving the company in May. Tully had been Splunk’s CTO since August 2017.

Tully was expected to join venture capital firm Menlo Ventures as a partner and oversee the firm’s Menlo XV fund. Menlo Ventures said Tully will focus on startups with next-generation cloud infrastructure, specifically AI and machine learning platforms, DevOps and the new data stack.

Tully’s departure comes on the heels of a number of executive management changes at Splunk over the last year, including the appointment of Teresa Carlson of president and chief growth officer.

Catherine Solazzo

Tech Data appointed former IBM executive Catherine Solazzo as senior vice president of marketing.

Solazzo was most recently vice president of worldwide partner ecosystem performance marketing at IBM, where she also served as chief of staff for the chief digital officer and vice president of worldwide developer programs.

“Catherine’s deep experience in sales and marketing within the IT industry makes her a natural fit for this role,” said Tech Data President of the Americas John O’Shea in a statement. “She is a proven leader who has orchestrated major initiatives across functional and organizational boundaries. Her experience navigating complex, matrixed organizations to drive the alignment of stakeholders is necessary to transform the Tech Data Americas business and help our customers thrive. She is well positioned to help us establish Tech Data as the premier IT solutions aggregator and make us stand out as the solutions leader in the channel across the Americas.”

Jon Pexton

UserTesting, a provider of on-demand human insights, appointed former Workfront executive Jon Pexton as CFO.

Pexton previously held the same title at Workfront, a provider of enterprise work management software that was acquired by Adobe. Prior to that, he served as CFO at CallidusCloud, Vitria Technology and Remedy Software.

“We are at an exciting time here at UserTesting, and Jon’s outstanding background in helping high growth technology companies scale and operate at a higher level is an ideal match for our current growth trajectory,” said Andy MacMillan, CEO of UserTesting. “More importantly, Jon is an outstanding leader, and he is a great fit for our executive team as we move into our next phase of growth.”

Bettina Koblick

UIPath, a provider of enterprise automation solutions, appointed former ServiceMax executive Bettina Koblick as chief people officer. Koblick is taking over from interim CPO Andreea Baciu, who has moved to the role of chief culture officer.

Koblick was most recently chief people officer of ServiceMax. Prior to that, she worked at a range of large and small software companies, including Symantec.

“Bettina is an innovative leader who brings a wealth of experience partnering with executive teams to build a strategic, people-focused strategy,” said Daniel Dines, UiPath’s CEO and co-founder, in a statement. “She has also built successful programs, systems, and relationships to help recruit, educate, and develop employees at scale. This track record for creating great environments for people to do the best work of their careers will enable our employees to get the most out of their experience at UiPath with her leadership.”

John Turner

Red Canary, a provider of security operations solutions, made two executive appointments: John Turner as chief revenue officer and Rick Caccia as chief marketing officer.

Turner was most recently head of sales for Google Cloud’s security business unit and prior to that spent seven years at Symantec, where he served as vice president of the technology sales organization. Caccia was the head of marketing for Google Cloud’s security business unit. Before that, he was senior vice president of sales at TriNet.

“Following record growth in 2020 and our recent Series C fundraising of $81 million, Red Canary is expanding rapidly,” said Brian Beyer, CEO and co-founder, in a statement. “JT and Rick will help us expand our global go-to-market capabilities as the company scales to the next level. We have previously worked with both as partners and are excited to welcome them as co-workers.”

Geoff Waters

Check Point Software Technologies made four executive appointments: Geoff Waters as head of Americas sales, Nisha Holt as head of Americas channel sales, Erick Foy as head of North America distribution sales and Coletta Vigh as head of worldwide channel strategy and growth initiatives.

Waters was most recently senior vice president of worldwide cloud sales at VMware, where he worked for nine years. Holt, who previously oversaw national channel partners at Check Point, was previously at Symantec. Foy was previously senior director of channel sales at iboss and was at Symantec in channel leadership roles for 15 years prior. Vigh was previously managing director of global channel sales at Pulse Secure and before that spend five years in channel leadership roles at WatchGuard Technologies.

“You’re going to see people who are respected, people who have credibility in the channel, and people who are going to maintain the great legacy of Check Point,” Frank Rauch, worldwide head of channel sales, told CRN exclusively.

Erik Frieberg

Solo.io, a provider of API infrastructure solutions, made two appointments: Erik Frieberg as CMO and Barry Lieberman as vice president of sales.

Frieberg was most recently CMO at open source infrastructure company Puppet. Before that, he was senior vice president of cloud, product and integrated marketing at VMWare and CMO at MongoDB. Liberman was previously vice president of sales at API management company Apigee, which was acquired by Google Cloud. He also held sales leadership roles at Endeca and SuccessFactors.

“Erik and Barry bring a tremendous amount of strategic marketing and sales experience that will help in our ongoing conversations with companies as we work to predict, meet, and exceed customer demand,” said Idit Levine, founder and CEO, Solo.io, in a statement.

Sarah Hamilton

Infrascale, a provider of cloud-based data protection solutions, appointed RSA veteran Sarah Hamilton as senior vice president of marketing.

Hamilton was most recently vice president of product and solutions marketing at FireMon. Prior to that, she was vice president of product marketing at Capsule8 and senior director of solutions and alliances marketing at Sungard Availability Services. She has also served in roles at RSA and Dell EMC.

“Sarah’s rich background spanning data protection, hybrid cloud, and network services spaces, her diversity of experience across marketing disciplines, and her proven success in building and supporting collaborative teams make her a great fit for Infrascale as we grow and scale,” said Russell P. Reeder, Infrascale’s CEO, in a statement.

Steve Dodenhoff

Okta has brought on former Insight North America President Steve Dodenhoff to drive more services opportunities for partners and tighter relationships with CSPs and ISVs.

Dodenhoff’s title at Okta is senior vice president of worldwide partners and alliances, and he is tasked with integrating cloud service providers and Tier 1 software vendors into Okta’s go-to-market motion so that customers with pre-existing cloud and SaaS relationships can enjoy a more seamless experience.

Dodenhoff spent more than eight years leading Insight’s $6 billion North American business before mutually agreeing to part ways with the Tempe, Ariz.-based company, No. 15 in the 2020 CRN Solution Provider 500, in May 2020. Dodenhoff was replaced at Insight by former Dell Technologies global channel chief Joyce Mullen in October 2020.

Paul Repice

Datadobi, a provider of unstructured data management software, appointed former Western Digital executive Paul Repice as vice president of sales for the Americas.

Repice, who will report to Chief Revenue Officer Michael Jack, previously held the same title at Tintri, a division of DDN that is focused on IT system management. Before that, he held executive roles at Western Digital, Tegile Systems and Hewlett-Packard.

“Over the past few years, Datadobi has taken the reigns of the unstructured data management market and worked to provide the best-in-class data migration and protection solutions for enterprises,” Jack said in a statement. “As we look to continue to help organizations bring order to their growing unstructured data both on-premises and in the cloud, we are looking forward to relying on Paul’s expertise to drive customer success in the Americas.”

Tim Mackie

Armis has hired Recorded Future, SentinelOne and Cylance channel veteran Tim Mackie to grow international sales and repackage the IoT security startup’s training curriculum.

Mackie joined Armis as vice president of global channels following a five-month stint as global channel chief at Somerville, Mass.-based Recorded Future. He is tasked with strengthening Armis’ presence outside North America and modify the company’s partner certification program to create a more tiered approach based on engagement level.

Mackie is looking to, for the first time, make certifications a requirement for reaching certain tiers in Armis’ partner program. Up until now, Mackie said Armis had recommended that partners obtain certifications but had never mandated it.

Lori Cornmesser

CyCognito is bringing on longtime Infoblox and Ixia partner leader Lori Cornmesser to serve as the external attack surface management vendor’s first-ever channel chief.

Cornmesser’s title is vice president of worldwide channel sales, and she will look to increase the share of business flowing through the Palo Alto, Calif.-based cybersecurity startup’s channel from 63 percent today to 95 percent a year from now. CyCognito has tasked Cornmesser with bringing more structure to the 100 channel relationships the firm has today by building out a formal partner program.

Cornmesser most recently spent nearly three years as Infoblox’s global channel chief, and prior to that spent 4.5 years leading global channels at Ixia, where she also built out their first-ever partner program. CyCognito has already established relationships with solution providers like Wipro and Optiv, but Cornmesser said those exist outside a formal program with rules of engagement and clear swim lanes.

Satish Ramakrishnan

Ahana, a provider of self-service analytics for Presto, appointed Comcast veteran Satish Ramakrishnan as vice president of engineering.

Ramakrishnan was most recently executive vice president of engineering at Reltio. Prior to that, he held executive roles at RiseSmart, PointCast, CoreObjects, BEA and Comcast. It was at Comcast where he founded the company’s Silicon Valley Innovation Lab.

“Satish’s appointment is an important and high-impact addition to the senior team as we expand the capabilities of the industry’s first Presto managed service,” said Ahana CEO Steven Mih in a statement. “As vice president of engineering, Satish will be integral to helping build out Ahana Cloud for Presto to bring the power of the most powerful open source distributed SQL query engine to any organization.

Tom Koppelman

VMware hired longtime Cisco sales veteran Tom Koppelman as its new worldwide sales leader for networking and security solutions in a move to boost the virtualization star’s market share in network and security led by its growing NSX portfolio.

Koppelman spent 17 years at Cisco holding various top executive sales roles focused on key areas for Cisco including enterprise networking, security, software, collaboration, data center and “mass scale infrastructure,” said VMware in a statement to CRN. Most recently, Koppelman was vice president of Americas Architecture Sales for Cisco leading around 1,000 technical sellers and engineers, while also helping the networking giant through market transitions.

“During his 17 years at Cisco, he led his team through strategic market transitions, successfully launched critical new solutions and managed acquisitions to help deliver $21B in annual product sales. He was instrumental in leading the transformation of their go-to-market approach for the product sales specialists,” said VMware.

Richard Orange

Digital Guardian, a provider of data loss prevention and managed detection and response solutions, appointed Forescout veteran Richard Orange as vice president of EMEA sales.

Orange was most recently part of the leadership team for Europe, Middle East and Africa sales at Forescout, where he worked for more than four years. He has also held roles at F5 Networks, HP Enterprise Security and Vistorm.

“With his proven sales and business development skills, Richard is the perfect person to capitalize on our opportunity in EMEA and take the helm of this important growth region,” James McCarthy, senior vice president of global sales at Digital Guardian, said in a statement.

Jeff Mattan

BeyondTrust, a provider of privileged access management solutions, appointed Proofpoint veteran Jeff Mattan as vice president of global partner programs.

Mattan, who was in charge of revamping BeyondTrust’s channel partner program, was most recently senior director of worldwide partner programs, operations, marketing and enablement at IoT provider KeepTruckin. He has also served as director of worldwide partner programs, enablement and operations at Proofpoint, director of worldwide partner enablement at Citrix and senior director of worldwide channels, marketing and strategy at ShoreTell.

“Jeff’s experience includes a mix of enhancing existing Partner Programs and building new ones. This background is ideal for where BeyondTrust is heading as a company,” said Dee Dee Acquista, BeyondTrust’s senior vice president of Global Channels.

Sebastian Goodwin

SADA, a top Google Cloud partner, appointed three executives to the company’s board of directors: Nutanix CISO Sebastian Goodwin, Zenoss CFO Matt Bates and Everbridge CEO David Meredith.

The appointments bring the number of board members to right.

“This is a great day for SADA’s customers,” said Tony Safoian, CEO at SADA, in a statement. “We’re adding three new board members with extensive security, compliance and operations expertise with multi-billion dollar enterprise organizations. They’ve all been key players in helping private companies become public companies. They will be instrumental in guiding our efforts to operate our business in a way that helps our customers succeed and grow with Google Cloud.”

Connie Chen

Corel Corporation appointed former OpenTable executive Connie Chen as chief legal officer.

Chen was most recently general counsel and senior vice president of legal and business development at OpenTable. Prior to that, she spent seven years at law firm Latham & Watkins LLP.

“Connie is a valuable addition to the Corel leadership team and I know we will benefit greatly from her insights, system-level thinking and structured approach,” said Christa Quarles, CEO of Corel, in a statement. “Working with Connie at OpenTable, I was consistently impressed by her ability to build high-performing teams and create optimal environments where business and people succeed. She is a true partner who will deliver huge value across all aspects of our organization.”

David Northington

OSF Digital, a Salesforce commerce and digital cloud transformation partner, appointed former Accenture executive David Northington as chairman of its board of directors.

Northington was previously managing director for Accenture Cloud First. Prior to that, he was chairman and CEO of Cloud Sherpas and COO of Capgemini North America.

“I’m excited about the expertise and experience David brings to OSF, and I’m confident his contribution will take our business to the next level,” Gerard (Gerry) Szatvanyi, CEO of OSF Digital, said in a statement. “Our vision is to build OSF into a digital transformation and commerce powerhouse and the world-leading independent partner in the Salesforce ecosystem, and David has the leadership skills and experience to help us get there.”

Vikki Kolbe

Alida, a provider of customer experience management and analytics software, appointed former Oracle executive Vikki Kolbe to its board of directors.

Kolbe is co-founder and CISO of KGCloud Advisory, a cloud consulting firm. She was previously senior vice president of cloud services at Oracle.

“Vikki brings significant leadership to the board,” said Philip C. Deck, chairman of the Alida board of directors, in a statement. “Her global technology expertise will be invaluable as the Alida team continues its strong growth trajectory in customer experience management.”

Joe VanPatten

Advizex appointed one of its top sales executives, Joe VanPatten, to the new role of vice president of cloud consumption.

VanPatten, a seven-year Advizex veteran who was a general manager in the Rochester, New York region, is now responsible for ramping up the company’s everything as-a-service sales efforts.

The appointment of VanPatten is the next step in Advizex’s plan to raise the recurring revenue needle to 50 percent of sales over the next three years, said C.R. Howdyshell, the president of Advizex, who was named a CRN Top 100 executive for his game changing everything as-a-service sales leadership.

Brenden Smith

ITK Solutions Group, a provider of process-driven digital transformation solutions, appointed Brenden Smith as its first director of the company’s Microsoft Power Platform practice.

Smith was most recently CTO at MERP Systems. Prior to that, he was CTO at Concourse Federal Group, where he worked for more than three years.

“The Microsoft Power Platform is a significant pillar in our solution set, and enables us to rapidly transform our customers’ business processes,” said Chris Fibbe, managing partner at ITK, in a statement. “Our practice is now being led by an expert who can draw on the extensive capabilities of the platform and apply them to the specific business challenges our customers face. Brenden has the extensive business acumen and technical expertise we need. We’re excited to welcome him to the ITK family.”