Red Hat CEO Hat Swaps Heads

Red Hat is changing heads as it continues to power parent company IBM’s ongoing push into the hybrid-cloud market. Red Hat is changing heads as it continues to power parent company IBM’s ongoing push into the hybrid-cloud market. Paul Cormier is moving from CEO into Red Hat’s chairman position where he will take on portfolio growth and leadership development at the open source vendor. Matt Hicks, who previously served as EVP of products and technologies, is moving into the CEO position. Both will continue reporting into IBM CEO Arvind Krishna. Cormier cited Hicks’ more than 15 years with the company and his leadership position in developing the vendor’s widely used OpenShift platform. “[Hicks] is a true Red Hatter – he knows who we are, where we’ve come from, lives our culture, and is one of the most passionate people I have had the privilege of working with,” Cormier said in a blog post on the move. “Matt has the vision and the drive to help us seize the incredible opportunity ahead of Red Hat.” In his inaugural blog post as CEO, Hicks cited a planned focus on simplifying Red Hat’s “playbook.” “There is power in simplicity and focus,” Hicks wrote. “Our strategy is to deliver open hybrid cloud. To do that, we must deliver the platforms that enable customer success from on-premises environments to cloud services and at the edge. We will refine our playbook to the simplest possible set of things to deliver in these areas, and with that simplicity, I believe we can become best-in-class in everything we do.” The move is the first major leadership change at Red Hat following its initial integration into IBM, which came on the heels of IBM’s $34 billion purchase of the vendor. That integration resulted in Krishna taking over as CEO of IBM from Ginni Rometty; former Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst moving to president of IBM; and Cormier moving from president of products and technologies into the CEO position. The move comes at a critical time for Red Hat and IBM, as the former remains a significant driver of IBM’s growth. IBM’s management has repeatedly noted the importance of Red Hat’s OpenShift, OpenStack, and Enterprise Linux (RHEL) platforms in driving its hybrid-cloud ambitions. Red Hat, and OpenShift in particular, have also been key to IBM’s growing influence in the telecommunications space. OpenShift is based on the Kubernetes container orchestration project that allows for the migration of applications across different cloud and on-premises environments. A recent report from TBR Senior Analyst Catie Merrill noted that the OpenShift platform has four-times as many customers as it did before the IBM acquisition. That stat was backed by recent comments from IBM CFO Jim Kavanaugh, who told a Bank of America 2022 Technology Conference audience that the number of “clients” running its hybrid-cloud platform has increased from 800 pre-acquisition to more than 4,000 clients today. “We’ve been on an accelerated transformation over the last handful of years, really led by the strategic acquisition of Red Hat and the strong adoption and performance that we’ve been able to deliver,” Kavanaugh said.