EMC Channel Exec Takes Over Americas Business Operations At VMware

Casale was formally unveiled as the new senior vice president and general manager of VMware's Americas business.

He is replacing Richard Geraffo Jr., who previously held the same position at virtualization vendor VMware. Geraffo in April left VMware to take a new role as senior vice president and managing director of the Americas for HP's $54 billion Enterprise Business group.

Casale joins VMware after a 19-year stint with EMC where he most recently served as that company's senior vice president for global channels, OEMs, and go-to-market strategy.

He brings a long history of working with EMC's channels and working with EMC partners including VMware, said Carl Eschenbach, executive vice president of worldwide field operations at VMware. Casale was not a channel chief at EMC, but was instead focused more on the programs side, Eschenbach said.

"While at EMC, Jeff worked with VMware to understand our go-to-market channel strategy," Eschenbach said. "He also looked at how EMC could work with VMware and all its partners on the channel."

In his new role, Casale's responsibilities include strategic planning, go-to-market, and management of key functions for the Americas region including sales, channels, services, finance, and field marketing, Eschenbach said.

Eschenbach brushed off any concerns related to the departure of Geraffo for HP, which is an arch-rival to EMC. "HP continues to be one of our strategic ecosystem partners, and it's great having Rich at HP as another friend of VMware," he said.

Casale joins two other senior vice presidents, including one from EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa) and one from Asia-Pacific-Japan, in reporting directly to Eschenbach.

The movement of Casale from EMC to VMware is not unusual.

Storage vendor EMC currently holds an 80 percent-plus equity stake in VMware, and other executives from VMware, including President and CEO Paul Maritz, have made the move before.

An EMC spokesperson said that the company is currently looking to hire a replacement for Casale.

Casale's move to VMware is the latest in a recent series of changes involving EMC's channel marketing team.

Other recent departures include Willem Hendrickx, who from July of 2008 until a couple of months ago was senior vice president for EMC's global channels office, and Kristian Thyregod, who until last month served as vice president of global channel marketing and global distribution.

However, the EMC departures were focused more on the channel marketing side, while EMC's channel sales team has not been impacted, another EMC spokesperson said.