Citrix's Executive Leadership Turmoil Continues As Two Recent Hires Depart

Citrix Systems has seen several veteran executives depart in recent years, and now two relatively recent hires have also left.

Rakesh Narasimhan, who joined Citrix in January 2014 as vice president and general manager of its application and desktop virtualization business, left in February "due to a personal family situation," a Citrix spokesman told CRN Wednesday.

Bill Burley, a 22-year Citrix veteran, has replaced Narasimhan as vice president and general manager of application and desktop virtualization, the spokesman said.

[Recent: Citrix Shuffles Sales Leadership, Appoints EMEA Sales VP To Replace Departing Monserrat]

Narasimhan was in charge of strategy, products, engineering and product marketing for Citrix's end-user computing portfolio, according to his LinkedIn profile. He previously spent 14 years at Microsoft and four years at Oracle.

Citrix hired Narasimhan to replace Bob Schultz, a former Citrix executive who left in December 2013 and is now with VMware.

One Citrix partner told CRN he thinks Narasimhan's departure is a blow for Citrix, which had been grooming him to succeed CEO Mark Templeton. "This is very, very bad news," said the partner, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Sudhakar Ramakrishna, senior vice president and general manager of Citrix's Enterprise and Service Provider Division, is also leaving, the Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based vendor said in an 8-K filing in late February.

Ramakrishna is sticking around until May 31 to provide "transitional advisory services" as Citrix’s senior vice president of products, the vendor said in the 8-K.

Ramakrishna joined Citrix in 2013 from Polycom, where he was president of products and services, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Despite the departures of Narasimhan and Ramakrishna, Citrix is still bringing in new leadership. Christian Reilly joined Citrix last month as vice president and chief technology officer of its Workspace Services division, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Overwhelmed by all the kind messages. Looking forward to getting going as CTO of (new) Workspace Services Division . Thanks everyone!

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Reilly actually joined Citrix in July 2011 in its acquisition of Cloud.com, but left in September of the same year.

Citrix in January shook up its top sales leadership, announcing that Al Monserrat, senior vice president of worldwide sales and services since 2008, would be leaving after a 15-year run at the vendor. Taking his place effective April 1 is Carlos Sartorius, who's been managing director and vice president of Citrix's Europe, Middle East and Africa business since joining the company in 2011.

PUBLISHED APRIL 1, 2015