EMC: CEO Tucci To Remain In Charge Through Early 2015

Joe Tucci loves his job as chairman and CEO of storage king EMC so much that he has agreed to extend his tenure yet again.

EMC and Tucci on Wednesday signed an extension to Tucci's employment agreement under which he will remain in his position through at least February of 2015, according to an EMC SEC filing.

Tucci had originally planned to retire this year as he reached the age of 65, but in January he announced plans to stay at EMC through 2013.

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EMC has not said why Tucci will remain in charge longer than previously expected. In past conversations about his role at EMC, however, Tucci said his decision not to retire at age 65 was due in part to requests from EMC employees to remain at his post. He had also stated that EMC would have a new CEO before he retires and that he had expected to retire with the title of chairman only.

The news that Tucci will remain as EMC's top executive through early 2015 was called "amazing news" by Jamie Shepard, executive vice president of technology solutions at ICI, a Marlborough, Mass.-based solution provider and long-term EMC channel partner.

"I wish he would have signed on for another five years," Shepard said.

Shepard said he has been nervous about Tucci leaving. "He has some great people under him, but they may not share his complete vision," he said. "They're not as well-rounded as Joe is."

Tucci, on the other hand, has articulated the importance of the channel and of the cloud in a way no one else has, Shepard said.

"Everybody is talking about having a cloud team," he said. "But Tucci has really outlined the difference between public, private and hybrid clouds and where EMC stands. Other vendors tell us customers need new hardware for private clouds. But, Tucci articulated the message that we need to develop the cloud, not just buy EMC hardware."

Tucci's decision to stay at EMC comes even as the company strengthens its executive team with a series of high-profile changes that, unlike what happens in most companies, has resulted in no executive departures.

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For instance, Pat Gelsinger, who during his tenure as COO and president of EMC's Information Infrastructure Products division was often considered to be a potential successor to Tucci, this month took over as CEO of VMware, which is majority owned by EMC. His predecessor at VMware, Paul Maritz, meanwhile, took the position of chief strategist at EMC.

This Summer also saw long-term EMC CFO David Goulden become the company's president and COO; President and COO of Information Infrastructure Services Howard Elias took over EMC's solutions group and EMC's corporate shared services; and CMO Jeremy Burton got promoted to executive vice president of product operations and marketing.

Other recent major executive changes include the appointment of Vice Chairman William "Bill" Teuber to the Office of the Chairman and the promotion of 27-year EMC veteran sales exec Bill Scannell to the position of president of global sales and customer operations.

The next two years at EMC will be transformational as the company continues to develop a well-rounded executive team, especially given those executive shuffles, which will make EMC stronger going forward, ICI's Shepard said.

"Tucci brought a lot into EMC," he said. "And he has grown a lot. He had a great crop of people to choose from. But his own people didn't want him to leave, so he rearranged his top people to make them more rounded. They were all great moves."

EMC declined to comment.

PUBLISHED SEPT. 7, 2012