Veteran Channel Exec LaRocca Jumps From Oracle To New Role At Symantec

Tom LaRocca, senior vice president of North America channels and alliances at Oracle, has left the company and joined Symantec, a spokesman for the Mountain View, Calif.-based security vendor told CRN on Wednesday.

LaRocca is now head of global partner program sales at Symantec, reporting to John Thompson, global vice president of channel and partner sales, the spokesman said. An Oracle spokeswoman declined comment.

LaRocca joined Oracle in January 2012 after spending the previous 12 years at Hewlett-Packard, where he oversaw its channel partnerships and initiatives. He was the first of several HP channel executives to reunite with their former boss, Mark Hurd, at Oracle, a list that includes Rich Geraffo, Gary Koopman, Adrian Jones and, more recently, Dave Donatelli.

[Related: Former Hewlett-Packard Exec Joins Oracle As Its New Channel Chief]

In March at the XChange Americas conference, LaRocca touted the progress Oracle had made in working more closely with the channel. "We're going to continue to get more channel-centric," LaRocca said at the event. "For me, it starts at the executive level and bringing in the right people."

Oracle last month tapped Bill Swales, former vice president of Hewlett-Packard's industry standard server business in the Americas, as its new channel chief, filling a role that had been vacant since November when Geraffo was named senior vice president of North America technology, hardware and public sector sales.

LaRocca is now once again working with Jones, who jumped to Symantec last June to run the vendor's Asia-Pacific business, and was promoted in October to lead its global security sales.

Symantec last October revealed a plan to split itself into two separate security and storage companies and expects to complete the move by the end of 2015. Earlier this week, Symantec sold its Veritas data storage business to the Carlyle Group and Singapore-based GIC for $8 billion.

PUBLISHED AUG. 12, 2015