Julie Parrish Officially Joins NetApp

Julie Parrish, who until October was Symantec's vice president of global channels, started work on Monday as NetApp's new vice president of worldwide channel sales.

Parrish joined the company just four business days after Todd Palmer, a recent employee of CA, joined NetApp as its new vice president of Americas channels.

Both Parrish and Palmer come to NetApp in the wake of the sudden departure of NetApp's former vice president of global channels, Leonard Iventosch.

Parrish reports to Pat Linehan, senior vice president of worldwide sales at NetApp. For Parrish, the chance to join NetApp was "an alignment of a great job, a great company, and great timing," she said.

Moving to NetApp brings Parrish back to her roots as a channel executive focused on storage, similar to the role she played at Veritas for two years before it was acquired by Symantec about four years ago.

"NetApp is a little more focused in its products and channels and gives me a chance to work more with storage partners," she said. "Symantec had 150 products and different partner segments. So NetApp is much simpler."

Neither Parrish nor Palmer would discuss whether they were approached by NetApp about their new positions or vice versa but instead cited mutual interests as the reason for their decisions.

Palmer, who spent 11 years at CA, said he made the move after meeting some of the top executives at the company. "They have great products and great programs," he said.

Prior to leaving NetApp, Iventosch handled both global and North American channels. However, Parrish said, Linehan had been working before Iventosch left on splitting up the responsibilities. "It's been on the table for quite some time," she said.

Debbie Medal, senior director of marketing, decided to look outside NetApp for its new channel chiefs because it wanted strong people to fill the roles.

"When you get an opportunity to bring in very, very strong leadership, it's not an opportunity to pass up," Medal said. "Leonard's sudden departure was an opportunity to bring people in to fill in two areas."

Medal said NetApp just last week learned that Iventosch joined competitor Isilon Systems as its vice president of global channels and OEM to help lead that company's move to expand its channel business.

"I think it's a fabulous opportunity for Leonard," she said. "He leaves a strong legacy at NetApp. Julie and Todd now have their opportunity to build strong channel revenue for NetApp. And Leonard has the opportunity to build strong revenue and channels for Isilon."