Headcount: Firings, Hirings, and Retirings — December 2020

Here are some of the latest executive hirings, promotions, and staff changes that happened in December. If you’d like SDxCentral to report on your company’s movers and shakers, or if you’ve got a tip about layoffs and restructuring, please send the information to Sydney Sawaya (ssawaya@sdxcentral.com) for inclusion in the monthly headcount column. Here are some of the latest executive hirings, promotions, and staff changes that happened in December. If you’d like SDxCentral to report on your company’s movers and shakers, or if you’ve got a tip about layoffs and restructuring, please send the information to Sydney Sawaya (ssawaya@sdxcentral.com) for inclusion in the monthly headcount column. Nutanix hired former VMware COO Rajiv Ramaswami as its new CEO effective Dec. 14. Ramaswami succeeds co-founder Dheeraj Pandey, who announced his plans to retire as CEO of Nutanix upon the appointment of a successor, earlier this year. As COO of products and cloud services at VMware, Ramaswami played a key role in transitioning VMware toward a subscription and software-as-a-service model. Prior to this role, Ramaswami led VMware’s Networking and Security business. Weeks later, VMware filed a lawsuit against Ramaswami alleging he breached his legal and contractual duties to VMware by “secretly meeting” with Nutanix’s top brass while working with VMware’s leadership to shape that company’s strategy. In its own statement, Nutanix calls VMware’s lawsuit “misguided,” and an “unfounded attempt to hurt a competitor.” Longtime Cisco executive Jeff Reed left the company and accepted a position at Google as VP of product for Anthos, the cloud provider’s hybrid cloud platform. His departure came just four months after taking over as SVP of security at Cisco where he was, until recently, heading up the company’s emerging secure access service edge (SASE) platform. Reed’s move to Google brings to an end a nearly decade-long career at Cisco where he held positions in the company’s Ethernet switching technology group, unified access, SDN, and security businesses. In a statement, a spokesperson for Google confirmed that Reed had joined the company but did not disclose the extent of his responsibilities. What is known is Reed’s position involves Anthos, which Google announced back in 2018 and launched in April 2019, as a way to help customers transition to the cloud more easily. The fully-managed platform is based on Kuberenetes and is designed to run on-premises or in multiple clouds including AWS and Azure. Multiple senior executives at Nokia announced they would be heading for the exits prior to the formalization of CEO Pekka Lundmark’s company-wide restructuring. Marcus Weldon, CTO and president of Nokia Bell Labs, and Basil Alwan and Sri Reddy, co-presidents of the IP/Optical Networks unit at Nokia will leave the company. All three departures were first reported by TelecomTV. Nokia, in a statement provided to SDxCentral, confirmed that Alwan and Reddy “have offered to stay for as long as necessary to ensure a smooth transition.” The spokesperson added: “There is a lot of mutual goodwill and respect, and we are currently working through the details.” Nokia didn’t answer questions about the timeline for each executive’s exit or when replacements will be named, but the moves appear to be driven by Nokia’s corporate reshuffling. Google hired Phil Venables, a former security chief at Goldman Sachs, to serve as Google Cloud’s first CISO. The IBM board of directors elected Arvind Krishna to serve as chairman of the board, effective Jan. 1, 2021. Nokia appointed Nishant Batra as chief strategy and technology officer and member of the group leadership team, effective Jan. 18, 2021. Cisco confirmed to at least two news outlets that it laid off about 3,500 employees since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic despite CEO Chuck Robbins’ pledge in April to not cut any jobs because of the pandemic. Nick Jeffery, CEO of Vodafone UK, informed the company of his intention to vacate the post. Ahmed Essam, who has served as group chief commercial operations and strategy officer since 2018, will step into the role as CEO effective Feb. 1. Zylo expanded its executive team with the appointments of Tim Horoho as CTO and Bob Grewal as chief revenue officer. Conversica added former Tableau CMO Elissa Fink to its board of directors. Exabeam welcomed former Splunk executive Sherry Lowe as its new CMO. Keeper Security announced the appointment of Mark Cravotta as the company’s first CRO and Ash Gupta as VP of product management. Shawn Lankton was named CEO of CoreView. Robert Amaral joined SlashNext as its new CRO. Sumo Logic announced the appointment of Tracey Newell to its board of directors. Optiva welcomed John Giere, who recently served as CEO of Openwave Mobility and GM of the mobility business unit for Openwave Systems, into his new role as president and CEO of the company. Revenue intelligence platform provider Gong appointed Jack Leidecker as its new CISO. Leidecker most recently served as senior director of information security at Teradata. Edo Ganot was named chief business officer for Excelero. Operational technology company Claroty announced Adi Weisz as VP of engineering and Brian Dunphy as VP of product management. Matthew Stauble joined analytic process automation provider Alteryx as its new chief customer officer and Libby Duane Adams, co-founder and former CCO, moved into a new chief advocacy officer position. Access partnership welcomed Yamel Sarquis as policy manager for Latin America in its Emerging Markets team. David Coffey, who previously served as SVP of engineering for Forcepoint, took up his new post as chief product officer for NS1. Quantum expanded its executive leadership team with the appointment of Brian Pawlowski as chief development officer. Pawlowski previously served in executive leadership roles at NetApp and Pure Storage. Linux Foundation Public Health announced Brian Behlendorf as its new executive director. Centrify welcomed Charlie Velasquez, who previously served as CFO at Skybox Security, to his new post as CFO. Sysdig named Dan Papandrea as lead of open source community and ecosystem. Cloud-delivered network security provider iboss appointed May Mitchell as the company’s new SVP of marketing. Dalton Menhall joined Trilio as its new VP of worldwide sales. Tangoe announced the appointment of James Parker, the former CEO and executive director for Masergy, as its new CEO.