Headcount: Firings, Hirings, and Retirings — January 2021

Here are some of the latest executive hirings, promotions, and staff changes that happened in January. 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 January. 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. VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger is set to leave that position to take over as CEO of Intel, replacing the chip giant’s long-time CEO Bob Swan who is set to retire. The C-level shakeup is set to take place on Feb. 15. The move will see Gelsinger return to Intel where he had spent 30 years rising through the company’s ranks. He topped out there as CTO and was key to developing its original 80486 processor architecture and its Core and Xeon family of processors. His departure will be the third high-level executive to flee VMware over the past several months. For Intel the move comes as the chip giant continues to battle against increasingly strengthened rivals that have undercut Intel’s once dominate position. In a statement on the executive upheaval, Intel specifically said the hiring of VMware’s leader was not tied to its 2020 financial performance and that it expects its fourth-quarter revenues and earnings per share to exceed its most recent forecast. Long-time Microsoft cloud executive Julia White jumped ship to SAP in a move that could back SAP’s attempt to bolster its cloud business. SAP named White as its new chief marketing and solutions officer, and also named her to its executive board. She will continue to be based in the U.S., and focus on product, industry, and digital marketing. Along with the White appointment, SAP also named Scott Russell as head of its customer success organization and a member of its executive board. Russell had previously served as president of SAP’s Asia Pacific Japan business. He will take over the customer success oversight and executive board seat from Adaire Fox-Martin. Japan telecom giant SoftBank shook up its executive ranks as founder and long-time chairman Masayoshi Son vacated his chairman position. SoftBank announced that current president and CEO Ken Miyauchi will relinquish those titles and replace Son as chairman of its board of directors. Son will remain on SoftBank’s board. Miyauchi, in turn, will be replaced by current CTO and director Junichi Miyakawa. The changes, which are set to take place on April 1, are part of a push by the SoftBank board to hit financial goals. The company noted in a statement that it “believes that to achieve sustainable growth as a listed company, it needs to make changes to management at appropriate times and pass on the strengths of its current management system to future generations.” Former Silver Peak executive Rick Valentine joined Quantum’s executive leadership team as its new SVP and chief customer officer. Qualcomm appointed Luiz Tonisi VP and president of Qualcomm Latin America. Smart communications platform provider Ooma added CFO Ravi Narula and general counsel Jenny Yeh to its board of directors. Redis Labs hired former Microsoft executive Taimur Rashid to serve as its new chief business development officer. Access Partnership welcomed Dileep Srihari as senior policy counsel in its U.S. team. Chase Cunningham, who previously served as VP and principal analyst at Forrester Research, was named Ericom’s chief strategy officer. Warren Aw was appointed Epsilon’s new managing director for Asia-Pacific. Cambridge Quantum Computing announced University of Oxford Professor Bob Coecke as its chief scientist. RingCentral welcomed former IBM executive Heather Hinton as the company’s new chief information security officer. Gary Cohn was named vice chairman of IBM and member of the executive leadership team. Data management provider Commvault hired John Tavares as VP of global channel and alliances. Corsight AI, a facial recognition service provider, announced the appointment of Tony Porter as its chief privacy officer. Alation expanded its leadership team with the addition of Tracy Eiler as chief marketing officer. Data and AI company Databricks welcomed Elena Donio and Jonathan Chadwick to its board of directors. Pure Storage introduced Ajay Singh as its new chief product officer. Simon Ewington was appointed to serve as Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s (HPE) VP of worldwide distribution. CSG named Ken Kennedy COO. Nora Guzman left her post at Amazon for a her new role as product, competitive, and content marketing functions for Extreme. The networking company also hired Marek Wasilewski, formerly of Mavenir, to serve as its new VP of global strategic alliances. Twilio announced Deval Patrick, former governor of Massachusetts, joined the company’s board of directors. Dell’Oro Group appointed Matthias Machowinski to the role of senior research director for wireless LAN. James Phillips, former VP of corporate technology at Mizuho, was named Rev.io’s new CTO. Cloud-based communications provider Fuze hired former Actifio executive Edward Durkin as its new CFO. The company also welcomed Dan MacDonnell, who recently retired as a Rear Admiral in the U.S. Navy with cybersecurity experience in both federal government and civilian executive capacities, as a new senior security advisor. Technology executive Ken Denman was elected to the VMware board of directors. Ted Julian joined cloud-native logging and security analytics company Devo Technology as SVP of product. INAP announced Warren Greenberg as its new VP of U.S. sales. San Mateo-based Incorta named Scott Jones CEO, replacing co-founder Osama Elkady who will remain as CTO. CSG appointed Channing Martin Jones to lead as the company’s first chief diversity and social responsibility officer. Anti-counterfeiting provider OpSec Security introduced chief product officer Lisa Arrowsmith as the newest member of its executive team. Claroty welcomed Simon Chassar as its new chief revenue officer. Dana Loof left Palo Alto Networks and joined Evolv Technology as its new chief marketing officer. Apollo GraphQL expanded its engineering team with the addition of Josh McKenzie who will serve as VP of engineering. Helen Patton, CISO at The Ohio State University, announced via Twitter that she will be will joining Duo Security at Cisco as its new advisory CISO. Azi Cohen, co-founder of Whitesource Software, stepped into his new role as CEO of CyberMDX. IBM announced the appointment of Martin Schroeter as CEO of “NewCo,” the independent company that will be created following the separation of IBM’s Managed Infrastructure Services business. Brad Anderson left his post at Microsoft for his new role as president of products and services at Qualtrics. Arun Oberoi, EVP of global sales and services for Red Hat, announced his intent to retire later this year. Larry Stack, SVP of commercial sales for Red Hat in North America, will take over Oberoi’s role beginning in April. Intel named Sunil Shenoy SVP and GM of the Design Engineering Group.