Avaya Executive Shuffle Continues With Two New Appointments

The appointments are effective Aug. 23, according to Avaya, and both executives will report directly to Avaya President and CEO Kevin Kennedy.

Heel, who goes by "Joe" and will be succeeding Formant in the services chief role, was most recently senior vice president, global services at Sun Microsystems, and during five years at Sun also served as senior vice president, global storage practice, and senior vice president of industries and partners. Before Sun, Heel was a partner with McKinsey & Co. in the U.S. and Germany, serving technology companies.

At Avaya, Heel will be responsible for a global services business encompassing 8,000 employees.

"We believe that Joe's extensive enterprise sales and services experience as well as his proven ability to deliver business results will add significant value to Avaya and our customers," said Kennedy in a statement.

Formant, who joined Avaya in June 2008 as its president of global services, will take over the top management role in Avaya Government Solutions, which comprises federal, state and local government business and was one area of Avaya that saw a significantly boosted presence following its acquisition of Nortel's enterprise business.

Formant takes over the government piece from former Nortel enterprise boss Joel Hackney, who in June succeeded Todd Abbott as Avaya's senior vice president, global sales and marketing and president, field operations.

"These appointments underscore our confidence in the substantial growth potential of both products and services opportunities of this market," Kennedy said.