Revolving doors! 10 major exits and appointments in 2015

1. Telstra CEO steps down

Perhaps most significantly for the IT channel, Thodey oversaw the growth of Telstra’s Network Applications & Services (NAS) business to $1.9 billion in revenues. It has since exceeded $2 billion.

Thodey first joined Telstra in 2001, stepping into the chief executive role in 2009 after former chief executive Sol Trujillo left the company.

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2. UXC chief plans exit

Nicolli saw the locally owned company grow to $700 million in revenue, adding UXC Connect to the empire along the way, expanding into North America, and making a string of acquisitions. Only a couple of months earlier he was showing off new headquarters for 450 staff in Sydney.

Nicolli plans to stay on until after CSC’s acquisition of UXC completes, or until a successor is appointed in the case of the deal not going ahead.

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3 John Donovan leaves VMware

It's not Donovan's first top-level security role, having been managing director of Symantec Australia & New Zealand for six years until 2005, but for the past five years he had been the channel boss at VMware.

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4. Microsoft loses SMB partner director

The former Express Data chief executive is a channel veteran, having previously spent 15 years working for Dimension Data. He left Express Data in 2013, moving to Microsoft where until recently he was director of small and midmarket solutions and partners.

Microsoft Australia’s managing director Pip Marlow praised Gage for leading his division through a "critical time".

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5. Scott Frew steps back

Frew oversaw DC's growth to more than $300 million in revenue. He passes the CEO baton to his co-founder, Nick Verykios.

It wasn’t the only senior staffing change at the Sydney-based company. Other appointments included a chief sales officer, chief operating officer and chief marketing manager. Michael Carlile also stepped down from his role as chief technology officer and chief information officer after 10 years at the business.

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6. Juniper boss jumps to HDS

He followed his colleague Mark Ablett, who had exited as Juniper’s vice president of South Asia in December 2014 to become Asia-Pacific general manager at HDS.

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7. Amcom CEO Clive Stein steps down

Amcom chairman Tony Grist paid tribute to Stein, who "saw the compelling logic" in the Vocus deal early on, and helped the company to a tenfold increase in market value.

Taking the reigns as chief executive of the combined company is Vocus boss James Spenceley.

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8. Mike Sakalas makes leap from reseller to vendor

He took the position of country manager at Pure Storage, which was not his first time working at a storage vendor, having previously worked at EMC and NetApp in the past.

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9. Dell appoints new partner boss

Dell made good on this by hiring an accomplished channel strategician: Geoff Wright, who came from a “global authority on multi-route channels”, Channel Enablers. The firm lists the likes of IBM, Cisco, Citrix, McAfee, Toshiba and Fujitsu as clients. Wright was also a channel director at Microsoft Australian in the 1990s and a distribution manager for Microsoft in the UK.

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10. Brennan CEO hands over the reins

Stevens remains executive chairman of Brennan IT, with a focus on mergers and acquisitions. He founded Brennan in 1997 and grew it into a household name in the Australian IT industry. This reputation was evident when Brennan was last year voted the inaugural 'CRN Fast50 Icon' by the fifty resellers in the 2014 awards.

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