Commvault Introduces Mercer Rowe As New Channel Chief, Adds Ex-Cisco Exec Edison Peres As Adviser

The hiring of Rowe (pictured) brings strong storage cloud expertise in addition to a long channel pedigree to Commvault, while Peres is expected to help Commvault accelerate a return to growth.

Data protection and management technology developer Commvault said it has hired Mercer Rowe as its new vice president of global channels and alliances.

Commvault also appointed Edison Peres, former longtime Cisco channel chief, as a strategic go-to-market adviser. Peres is also a strategic adviser to all-flash storage array vendor Pure Storage.

Both appointments were first unveiled at the Commvault Go partner conference being held this week in Denver.

[Related: Commvault Targets Midrange, SMB Market With New 'Metallic' Division]

Rowe, who spent years leading channel and alliance organizations at VMware, IBM and other companies, is reporting to Riccardo Di Blasio, Commvault's new chief revenue officer.

The hiring of Rowe comes at the same time that Commvault reorganized many of the company's functions to create a unified sales and marketing team under Di Blasio, said Carmen Sorice III, go-to-market chief of staff for the Tinton Falls, N.J.-based vendor.

Commvault about one month ago brought together its sales, marketing, customer success and sales operations to more closely align them, Sorice told CRN.

"The new chief revenue officer looks across all four to make sure they have the resources they need in place," he said.

Commvault's entire field team reports to Di Blasio, including Rowe, Sorice said.

Rowe, as Commvault's channel chief, leads the company's global channels and alliances program, he said. Rowe started in early October, but Commvault held off on unveiling his hiring until the Commvault Go conference because of all the changes going on at the company.

"There's so much going on with the introduction of the Metallic SaaS business, the acquisition of Hedvig, and the new executives," he said.

Rowe takes over part of the portfolio held by Owen Taraniuk, Commvault's former global head of partnerships and market development who left the company in early April, Sorice said.

“Under Taraniuk, we had one large global organization for channels and alliances," he said. "Riccardo [Di Blasio] wanted new leaders to lead the different global pieces. So Mercer is replacing some of Taraniuk's functions, but not all. Riccardo is looking for people with domain expertise. And Mercer spent time with Qumulo and before that VMware, and so has a lot of cloud expertise."

Bringing Rowe in means that Commvault is continuing to bring in new blood, said John Woodall, vice president of engineering at Integrated Archive Systems, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based solution provider and Commvault channel partner.

With the reorganization under the chief revenue officer, Commvault also seems to be doing more to bring together its sales and channel organizations, Woodall told CRN.

"In a lot of companies, where they're separate organizations, people talk channel, channel, channel," he said. "But rolling channels up under sales makes sense. To most companies, channel is a multiplier to the sales team. But the salespeople are not always properly compensated for the channel business."