CDW's Cloud Leader Departs, Forecasts New Cloud-Related Gig

CDW’s cloud computing sales leader announced he's leaving the company on Wednesday and the $2.9 billion cloud practice he helped develop there.

Shane Zide, who has been with CDW for almost five years, took to LinkedIn to post his farewell note. While Zide said he was ’way more emotional’ than he anticipated, he did not disclose what was next for him professionally. Zide hinted that it was in the cloud.

’I’ll be leaving CDW very soon," Zide wrote. "I want to thank everyone for their support over the last 4 1/2 years at CDW. From our bold sales leadership & sellers who adapted to a changing Hybrid Cloud market. To our most strategic Cloud partners who helped us build such a fantastic business together, thank you. My future thoughts will always be flooded with the most amazing co-worker memories, stories, past events, etc. It was an all-around life-changing experience. Excited for the future and I’ll for sure be seeing you soon in the Cloud world.’

CDW’s cloud practice has more than 200 cloud partners, as well as various professional and managed services. According to his LinkedIn profile, Zide has over eight years of Cloud, Hosting and IT Infrastructure experience working with Fortune 10 to mid-market companies.

A CDW spokesperson declined to discuss Zide's departure, saying "we will not have a statement.

Zide was unable to be reached for comment.

CEO Thomas Richards has called cloud one of the company’s fastest-growing practices, with consistent increases from quarter to quarter. In the company’s most recent earnings call, Richards said security and cloud each saw gains of more than 25 percent. He said CDW’s cloud solutions would continue to be a productive area for CDW.

’If you look at our cloud results and you think about some of the Device as a Service examples we've given, it's clearly got some momentum. It actually plays to one of our strengths,’ Richards said in the May call with investors.

The company also used its cloud practice to build a new service called ’micro cloud consulting,’ which it added to its cloud advisory services.

’Micro consulting engagements enable customers to get the professional consulting help they can afford in byte size eight-hour increments,’ the company said in their most recent earnings call. ’While still small our micro consulting practice is growing rapidly.’