30 Notable IT Executive Moves: December 2011

One More Round For 2011

While the frequency of notable IT executive moves usually slows as the holidays approach, December had some very interesting headlines for those curious about who's running the show at major IT channel-facing companies, particularly in telecom. Here's a look at 30 of the most notable moves during or just before the month of December 2011.

Nick Tidd

In a story first reported by CRN, longtime channel executive Nick Tidd resigned from his post as president of D-Link North America…

D-Link Shakeup

…part of a wave of recent departures from the SMB-focused networking vendor that included Pat Piwowarczyk, vice president, U.S. enterprise and channel sales; Rod St. Michel, vice president of consumer sales; Betsy Roddy, senior director of marketing communications and field marketing; and Kevin Lahm, associate vice president for North America field systems engineers.

Laura Quatela

Eastman Kodak is a legendary imaging and printing company, but as of late, the company has struggled mightily, with board departures and a tenuous financial position making for some scary headlines. Laura Quatela, most recently Kodak's general counsel, was named its new president in late December, and hopefully will help bring some stability to a wobbly ship.

Cisco Engineering Shuffle

Cisco spent most of calendar 2011 in restructuring mode, and in mid-December confirmed one more shuffle, streamlining its engineering organizations and consolidating power in the hands of key executives in video, security and data center businesses. Among the highlights: SVP David Yen, whom Cisco poached from Juniper in May 2011, is now head of Cisco's Data Center group, including Switching, Servers and Storage, and Load Balancing; SVP Chris Young, who jumped to Cisco from RSA in the fall, now heads Cisco's Security and Government Group; and SVP Marthin De Beer now controls all of the Video and Collaboration Group, which ties together Cisco's collaboration, telepresence, service provider video and emerging technologies businesses.

Ian Pennell

The executive exodus out of Cisco in 2011 will be long-remembered, what with the sheer number of high-profile, veteran Cisco talents who went through the turnstile. Ian Pennell, a 17-year veteran of Cisco and most recently senior vice president of Cisco's Small Business Technology group, was confirmed to be leaving the company right at the end of November. The product portfolio under Pennell's leadership was mooched into Cisco's Unified Access Business Unit, led by SVP Rob Soderbery.

David Lawler/James Urquhart

Two more big exits from Cisco, specific to its data center and cloud units. David Lawler, vice president of Unified Computing System (UCS) in Cisco's Server Access Virtualization Business Unit, quietly left the company in mid-December. And James Urquhart, most recently Cisco's cloud programs and communications manager, left the company to become VP of product strategy at cloud infrastructure management player enStratus.

Stuart McClure

McAfee named Stuart McClure its new chief technology officer in early December, and in an interview with CRN at the time, McClure said a big goal is to make Mcafee's products "push-button-simple." He succeeded George Kurtz, who left McAfee at the end of October to start his own company.

Anne Wilcox

Longtime channel executive Anne Wilcox, a staple at Ingram Micro events, left Ingram in mid-December to become chief marketing officer at Zones, an Ingram customer. Wilcox was vice president of customer and solutions marketing at the distributor, and at Zones, she joins another former distribution executive, former Tech Data SVP of U.S. Sales Tom Ducatelli.

John Wookey

John Wookey's certainly kept on the move. In mid-December, Wookey, who is Salesforce's executive vice president of advanced applications, was named to lead a new business unit within Salesforce focused on human capital management, using the assets Salesforce acquired from Rypple. Wookey, who was hired by Salesforce in November, is best known in the channel for his stints at Oracle, then SAP, from which he departed earlier in the year.

Lew Moorman

Cloud prime mover Rackspace Hosting named Lew Moorman its new president in early December, reporting to CEO Lanham Napier. Moorman had most recently been Rackspace's president, cloud and chief strategy officer.

Duncan Greatwood

Duncan Greatwood, who joined Cisco when it acquired a company he founded, PostPath, left Cisco in early December to become CEO of Topsy Labs, a search and analytics platform company described as "real-time search for the social web." Greatwood was the founder and CEO of PostPath, which at the time of its 2008 acquisition by Cisco focused on e-mail and calendaring software.

Nelson Fonseca

Terremark, which became Verizon's cloud computing subsidiary following an acquisition in 2011, named Nelson Fonseca its new president in late December. Fonseca succeeded Kerry Bailey, recently named chief marketing officer for Verizon Enterprise Solutions.

Doug Albregts

Well-known channel executive Doug Albregts, who left Samsung Electronics America in July 2011 for a VP post at American Express, jumped to Sharp Imaging and Information Company of America (SIICA) at the end of November. Albregts title at the Sharp Electronics Corporation division is president, and he's tacked with helping Sharp grow its reseller businesses, among other responsibilities.

Paetec's Top Brass

No sooner did Windstream close its blockbuster acquisition of Paetec in early December than many of its top executives moved on to other pursuits. Arunas Chesonis, Paetec co-founder and former CEO, became CEO of Sweetwater Energy, a renewable energy concern based in Rochester. Clint Heiden, formerly head of Paetec's services division, became president of fiber services company Sidera Networks. And former Paetec CTO Sanjay Hiranandani became SVP of IT operations at Paychex, the payroll and human resources services company.

Kevin O'Hara

Kevin O'Hara officially became the new CEO of Integra Telecom in mid-December, though that die was cast a few months earlier, when O'Hara was named executive chairman at Integra following the departure of former CEO Tom Casey. An Integra board member since 2009, O'Hara is perhaps best known to telecom channel partners as the co-founder and former COO of Level 3 Communications.

Tom Rutledge

Tom Rutledge, the former COO of Cablevision, was named president and CEO of Charter Communications in late December, a role he'll officially assume on Feb. 13. At Charter, which came out of bankruptcy in 2009, he succeeds Michael Lovett, who confirmed plans to step down from Charter's top job earlier in 2011.

Christopher Rajiah

Rackspace confirmed to CRN in late December that longtime channel executive Christopher Rajiah, who joined Rackspace two years ago, has taken over as vice president of Rackspace's global partner program and U.S. channel sales. Rajiah had most recently been director and vice president of North American channels, and he replaced Robert Fuller, who is moving out of Rackspace's channel organization and into a new role as vice president of global enterprise solutions.

Marilyn Crouther

In mid-December, HP named Marilyn Crouther, vice president of finance for HP's U.S. public sector region, to head up all of the tech giant's U.S. public sector concerns. Crouther's full title is SVP and general manager, HP public sector Enterprise Services business.

Shane Robison

Shane Robison, who retired as HP's chief strategy and technology officer in November, surfaced in late December at storage vendor Fusion-io, where he is now a director. Robison had been at HP since 2001, and was a member of the executive council.

Andy Lees

The movement in Microsoft's Windows Phone business continues, as Microsoft in mid-December moved Windows Phone division boss Andy Lees to a new position. The exact nature of Lees' new role is still unclear, but several of his duties, including marketing and business development, are now under Terry Myerson, corporate vice president. Lees still reports to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, according to All Things D, which was first to report the story.

Richard Losey

VAR500 power Carousel Industries spent much of the past two years bulking up via acquisition, and also adding to its executive team. in late December, Carousel grabbed another channel veteran, Richard Losey, who joined the VAR as vice president of services and will focus on Carousel's expanding managed, hosted and cloud services businesses. Losey, who reports to Carousel CEO Jeff Gardner, is a 23-year industry veteran and was most recently at SAIC, where he spent 16 of those years.

Terri Allen

Fast-growing government VAR DLT Solutions named Terri Allen its new executive vice president of sales. It's a newly created role and Allen will focus on DLT's customer-facing and vendor-centric sales activities, according to DLT.

Doug Ingraham

Brocade in mid-December promoted Doug Ingraham to be vice president of Alliances, in which he'll oversee Brocade's Strategic Technology, OEM Alliances and Strategic Program Council. Ingraham, who reports to Brocade CMO John McHugh, first joined Brocade in 2006 through its acquisition of McDATA.

Kevin Weber

Telecom network services specialist Nitel grabbed Kevin Weber as its new vice president of sales, where part of his charter is to grow Nitel's direct, wholesale and indirect sales channels. A telecom channel veteran, Weber was most recently had channel-building roles at Primus and CBeyond.

Brett Shockley

Brett Shockley, one of Avaya's best known executives and a former VAR, was promoted to senior vice president and general manager, Avaya Applications and Emerging Technologies in December. He had most recently been SVP of corporate development and strategy at Avaya, and before that, vice president of emerging products and technology.

Cary Tengler

Cary Tengler will be reunited with former colleague Craig Schlagbaum at Comcast Business Services, where Tengler was recently added to the indirect channel team as senior director, national partner programs. Schlagbaum, Comcast's vice president of sales, indirect channels, worked with Tengler at Level 3 Communications, where Tengler had been director of offer management and business development. Tengler most recently held channel development roles at Pillar Data Systems and a consultant and client services role at Amazon Consulting.

Kaseya Appointments

Managed services staple Kaseya made two appointments at the beginning of December. Anne Huemme is now Kaseya's CFO and Monica Hoppe is now executive vice president, global human resources. Huemme was most recently CFO at WebLayers, while Hoppe was previously Kaseya's outside counsel.

Alex Pinchev

Alex Pinchev will be Acronis' new president and CEO as of Jan. 17, Acronis confirmed in late November. Pinchev, a 30-year veteran of the company, was most recently executive vice president at Red Hat, a role he held for nine years. Pinshev has been on Acronis' board of directors since 2010 and replaces Jason Donahue, who has been Acronis' CEO since 2008.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal

Stanley McChrystal, a retired four-star general and the central subject of a much-discussed Rolling Stone profile of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan that ran in June 2010, is entering the tech sector. McChrystal in mid-December was named chairman of Siemens Government Technologies, covering security systems to engineering software for defense equipment. President Obama ousted McChrystal in June 2010 following publication of the Rolling Stone article, in which McChrystal was portrayed as making belittling remarks about administration officials.

Blue Jeans Hires

Much-buzzed-about video bridging startup Blue Jeans Network continued to add to its executive ranks in mid-December. Ted Tracy became Blue Jeans' new vice president of engineering, coming from Cisco, where he had most recently been senior director and general manager of Cisco's TelePresence Exchange and in charge of engineering for that unit. James Matheson became Blue Jeans' new vice president of marketing, coming from SuccessFactors, where he headed SMB go-to-market strategy.