Oracle Seeking New Channel Chief As Geraffo Moves To North America Sales Post

Oracle is hunting for a new channel chief following Rich Geraffo's recent move to head up the company's North America technology sales operations.

An Oracle spokesperson confirmed that Geraffo was recently named Oracle senior vice president, North America technology, hardware, and public sector sales. He reports to Oracle CEO Mark Hurd.

Geraffo has taken over the sales job previously held by Matthew Mills, a 21-year Oracle veteran who left the company in August.

Related: Sources: Turmoil In Oracle's Sales Ranks Continues After Execs Jones, Mills Depart

While Geraffo's Oracle biography reflects the change in his position, his personal LinkedIn profile still lists him as senior vice president, worldwide alliances, channels, OEM and global key accounts.

While the company spokesperson declined to comment further on the executive shift, a source in Oracle's channel organization said the channel chief position is currently vacant. The spokesperson declined to say who is carrying out Geraffo's channel chief duties or disclose a timetable for naming his replacement.

Geraffo was named Oracle's channel chief in October 2013. He came from Hewlett-Packard where he was senior vice president and managing director, managing that vendor's Americas Enterprise Business. He also worked at VMware and BEA Systems.

Geraffo, who was channel chief for about one year, replaced Judson Althoff, who had been Oracle's channel chief for five years before leaving in March 2013 for a top sales and marketing job at Microsoft.

Rhos Dyke, vice president of solution sales at Oracle partner Dynamic Systems, said he hasn't heard anything about who might be named to replace Geraffo. But he said Tom LaRocca, senior vice president of North America Alliances and Channels, has been a steady hand in that post since taking on the job in January 2012.

"I think Tom [LaRocca] and his lieutenants have done an outstanding job of both partner recruiting and partner enablement," Dyke said. "LaRocca has kept his eye on the ball and delivered on his commitments to us. His support and advocacy inside Oracle has been, and is, excellent."

Oracle has had something of a revolving door in its top sales and channel positions in recent years. In addition to Mills sudden departure, Mitch Breen, who was named head of North American sales in June 2013, left early this year after just eight months at the company. Adrian Jones, who joined Oracle from HP in 2011 as senior vice president of Oracle's Asia Pacific business, left to work for Symantec in June of this year.

"They've had a ton of turnover at that level," said an Oracle partner who asked that he not be identified. But the solution provider said the changes haven't really affected partners and their Oracle relationship.

Tuesday Symantec said it had hired Balaji Yelamanchili, the Oracle senior vice president overseeing the company's analytics and performance management products, to be executive vice president and general manager of Symantec's enterprise security products.

PUBLISHED NOV. 4, 2014