Brocade Hires Former HP ProCurve, Nortel Exec

Brocade on Monday said that John McHugh has joined the company as its new chief marketing officer.

McHugh most recently served as vice president and general manager of Nortel Networks' Enterprise Network Solutions business unit, where he handled the company's technology vision, R&D, and business operations.

Prior to that, he spent 26 years at Hewlett-Packard. When he left HP in June of 2009, he was vice president and worldwide general manager of HP ProCurve Networking, where he built the organization from a start-up to a $1 billion-plus business.

The move to hire McHugh comes as Brocade, best known for its storage networking expertise, is looking to build up its IP networking business.

Brocade late last month reported strong revenue and earnings growth for its fiscal first quarter, but said that its Ethernet business, which it picked up with which it picked up with its acquisition in late 2008 of Foundry Networks, has yet to meet expectations, and that it will invest resources into its OEM and indirect channels to drive demand in this part of the market.

Despite the strong growth in total revenue and earnings, the company was disappointed in its Ethernet networking business so far, said CEO Mike Klayko, speaking last month to analysts during the company's earnings conference call.

"As a management team, we are all aware that we did not meet our internal plans for a fast-growing business, our Ethernet business," Klayko said.