VMware Carbon Black Exec Jumps To Park Place Technologies

Park Place Technologies continues its aggressive executive hiring spree by nabbing VMware Carbon Black’s director of information security.

Fast-growing Park Place Technologies continues to hire top talent from the likes of Dell Technologies, NetApp and VMware, while also opening its private equity-backed wallet this year to acquire several new businesses.

Park Place Technologies, ranked No. 97 on CRN’s 2020 Solution Provider 500 list, has nabbed John Parlee as the company’s first-ever chief information security officer (CISO). Parlee was previously director of information security for VMware Carbon Black, responsible for leading its strategic information security efforts including architecture, engineering and risk mitigation. Last year, VMware acquired Carbon Black for approximately $2.6 billion.

“The addition of John and his security expertise to our team will strengthen our ability to fulfill compliance requirements and minimize risk,” said Park Place Technologies president and CEO Chris Adams in a statement. “His appointment demonstrates that we take the security of our customers very seriously.”

[Related: VMware Confirms Flinders Is Out As Channel Chief; Former Cisco Exec Sandy Hogan Takes Over]

This year, the Cleveland, Ohio-based company made it clear that it wants to hire top notch talent from Dell Technologies, who owns a majority stake in VMware.

Park Place has hired Dell Technologies’ vice president of sales for Dell EMC’s Data Protection Solution business in the Americas, Michael Vedda, as its first-ever chief revenue officer. The company also hired Kathie Lyons, Dell EMC’s vice president of Enterprise Programs and National Security, as its new executive vice president and general manager of its ParkView services business. Additionally, company snagged David Cox, who held top positions at Dell EMC from 2004 to 2015, as Park Place’s new chief operating officer in September 2019.

Prior to VMware Carbon Black, Parlee served as head of information security for the Cognex Corp. and as a security engineer for the MITRE Corp. He said in a statement that he was “impressed” with Park Place’s strategy and customer commitment.

“I look forward to working with the innovative team at Park Place to ensure that security and privacy are top priorities as the company continues to rapidly grow,” Parlee said in a statement.

As Park Place’s new CISO, Parlee will be responsible for maintaining the company’s information security program as well as ensuring that information and associated technology, applications, systems, infrastructure and processes are protected. He will also lead development and implementation of the Park Place security strategy, management of security threats and vulnerabilities, and compliance with relevant security requirements and privacy laws.

Since being acquired by private equity firm GTCR in late 2015, Park Place has acquired a total of fourteen companies or strategic business units, including network monitoring software specialist Entuity and the network operations center (NOC) business of IntelliNet in January.

Founded in 1991, Park Place services data center storage, servers and network hardware and supports over 58,000 data centers in more than 150 countries for its more than 17,000 customers worldwide. The company has historically been a standout in the data center third-party maintenance space but is aggressively broadening its systems monitoring portfolio and worldwide go-to-market strategy.