Citrix Product Marketing VP Jumps To Startup As Acquisition Talk Heats Up

Citrix Systems has lost another high-ranking executive after Matthew Morgan, vice president of corporate product marketing for the past two years, left to take the same role at big data startup Hortonworks.

At Citrix, Morgan was in charge of global product marketing for all of the Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based vendor's product lines. He helped drive Citrix's push into enterprise mobility with products such as Workspace Suite, its bundle of desktop virtualization, mobile device management and collaboration software, which launched last May.

Morgan has also been touting Citrix's Workspace Cloud, a platform for delivering apps, data and desktops to any device through a Web browser.

[Related: Citrix's Executive Leadership Turmoil Continues As Two Recent Hires Depart]

A 22-year industry veteran, Morgan joined Citrix in 2013 from Hewlett-Packard, where he'd spent the previous three years as vice president of IT management and cloud product marketing for HP Software, according to his LinkedIn profile.

A Citrix spokeswoman told CRN the vendor does not plan to replace Morgan.

Citrix has "several" vice presidents of product marketing across the company. Morgan "partnered closely" with David Moxey, vice president of corporate solutions marketing, a 12-year Citrix veteran who continues to lead the team, the spokeswoman said.

Morgan started at Hortonworks, Santa Clara, Calif., on Monday as vice president of product marketing, and has already updated his Twitter profile to reflect his new role. He'll report to Herb Cunitz, president of Hortonworks.

Setting up my new office . My office has a beanbag.

/**/ /**/

Morgan is the latest high-ranking executive to leave Citrix after short stints with the company.

Rakesh Narasimhan, vice president and general manager of its application and desktop virtualization business, left in February. Sudhakar Ramakrishna, senior vice president and general manager of its Enterprise and Service Provider Division, is leaving in May.

Meanwhile, Informatica's $5.3 billion buyout by private equity firm Permira Advisers and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board has some Wall Street analysts thinking Citrix could be next, Barrons reported Tuesday.

PUBLISHED APRIL 7, 2015