This summer's hottest channel hirings and firings

Hot summer of musical chairs

CRN takes a look back at all the movements in the channel under the hot Australian sun. If you know of a person who departed an old job or started in a new position, please tell us at crneditors@crn.com.au.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise loses Aussie channel chief

Hewlett Packard Enterprise channel chief Kaaren Lewis left the company after less than two years.

An HPE spokesperson confirmed the departure of Lewis, who was director indirect sales channel manager for small business and alliances, but declined to comment on the reasons.

Nicholas Lambrou, country manager for SMB, will act as interim leader for the South Pacific indirect business in addition to his current role, the spokesperson told CRN.

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Dick Smith CEO Nick Abboud resigns

Dick Smith chief executive Nick Abboud resigned in January. He was replaced by former managing director of Retail Fusion Brands, Don Grover, as interim chief executive.

Dick Smith was placed in voluntary administration and receivership, citing inability to attain short term funding. Receivers Ferrier Hodgson have confirmed the publicly traded company’s secured creditors are owed approximately $140 million and unsecured creditors owed approximately $250 million. Grover will continue to work with receivers in order to restructure the business.

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VMware appoints channel manager

VMware has appointed industry veteran Kerrie-Anne Turner as its new Australia head of channels and general business.

Turner - who starts at VMware today - fills the vacancy left behind by John Donovan’s departure in October.

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EMC channel manager Chris Trevitt resigns

EMC general manager of channel sales Chris Trevitt has resigned after 11 years with the company.

An EMC spokesperson told CRN that Trevitt will be replaced by general manager of telecommunications and service providers Mark Fioretto and director of federal public sector Brett Harris. Fioretto will manage the channel business for service providers, systems integrators and alliances, and Harris will manage the mid-market, inside sales and distribution.

Trevitt told CRN he wasn't ready to comment on his next position, but was considering a number of options.

One of Trevitt’s biggest changes was bringing in Avnet to join Ingram Micro as a local distributor, knocking out Westcon in the process. He also oversaw the distribution strategy of EMC’s channel-only hyper-converged appliance, VSPEX Blue, giving distributor rights first to Avnet then Arrow Electronics.

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Dave Stevens steps back at Brennan IT

Stevens founded Brennan IT in 1997 and grew the business into a household name in the Australian IT industry.

He remains executive chairman of the company, handing the reigns over to Stephen Sims.

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VMware Australia names new managing director

VMware has appointed Alister Dias as managing director for Australia and New Zealand to replace outgoing boss Duncan Bennet.

Bennet had announced his resignation from the virtualisation vendor in December after taking time away from the company to support his wife.

Dias has spent the past 16 years at EMC Australia, rising to head of Australia after various roles at general manager level, spanning enterprise and public sector and covering Queensland, NT and New Zealand. Prior to EMC, Dias also held various management roles at CA Technologies and Soft Centre.

VMware APJ vice president Sharat Sinha will continue running the day-to-day operations until Dias starts on 1 April. At EMC, Asia-Pacific president David Webster will take over until a permanent replacement for Dias is found.

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Avaya Australia head exits after just seven months

Avaya Australia managing director Jeff Sheard has left after just seven months in the top job.

Sheard joined Avaya in November 2014 as director of enterprise and government and was promoted to managing director in July to replace the outgoing Tony Simonsen, who left for Polycom.

This latest move follows a string of departures from Avaya’s executive team over the past year. The communications vendor was left without an ANZ channel director after Todd Parsons was made redundant in November. In March, Avaya replaced Asia-Pacific president Michael Muller with former Cisco vice president of business markets Mike Ansley.

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Kaspersky boss joins Hemisphere

Kaspersky Australia managing director Andrew Mamonitis left to join its major distributor, Hemisphere Technologies.

He spent seven years with Kaspersky, joining in 2009 after another seven-year stint at MYOB.

Kaspersky marketing manager Basem Abdo also joined Hemisphere.

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Rhipe's Stephen Parker launches cloud consultancy

Head of cloud strategy Stephen Parker left his position to launch 1 Vision OT, offering his services to senior business leaders to consult on cloud adoption.

Parker joined Rhipe in 2010 as head of cloud strategy, a position he held for five years. He was most recently appointed as vice president of market research in March before departing in September.

He continues to work closely with Rhipe as an anchor client of 1 Vision OT.

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SAP Australia appoints new channel boss

SAP Australia has appointed Sumal Karu as its new channel boss to replace the outgoing Greg Miller.

Miller announced his departure from SAP earlier this month after nearly two years as global partner operations vice president. The role will be renamed to 'general manager, global channels and general business' when Karu takes the mantel.

Karu joins SAP from identity and access management software vendor ForgeRock, where he was Asia-Pacific senior vice president for over a year. Prior to ForgeRock, Karu worked for CA Technologies as Asia-Pacific vice president of growth markets amd vice president of service virtualisation.

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Intel Security's Australian managing director exits

Intel Security is on the hunt for a new boss after managing director Keith Buckley left the company on 15 January.

Buckley, who has been Intel Security’s managing director since May 2013, joined Riverbed Technology as its regional vice president for Australia and New Zealand.

Intel Security, previously known as McAfee, has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Intel since February 2011 and now forms part of Intel Security division.

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Read more in the Riverbed appointment story.

UXC Red Rock chief departs

Founding UXC Red Rock director Jonathan Rubinsztein left the company after 16 years.

He joined automotive software company Infomedia to head up its global business. Infomedia supplies software to the likes of Ferrari and Porsche.

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Anittel CEO appointed Inabox COO

Inabox has appointed Anittel chief executive Vincent Pesquet as its chief operating officer.

Last January, Inabox hired Pesquet as chief executive for its new $10 million acquisition Anittel. In his new role as group COO, Pesquet will oversee sales, marketing and operations for Inabox's retail and wholesale channels.

Prior to joining Anittel and Inabox, Pesquet was a senior executive at beverage company Coca-Cola Amatil, credited for transforming that company "from a single category business into a diversified multi-channel business".

The role of CEO of Anittel will no longer exist, with both brands now led by Inabox group chief executive Damian Kay.

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Acronis GM Lincoln Goldsmith departs

Goldsmith left Acronis Australia after nearly two years to join Cisco Meraki.

Acronis is still looking for a new general manager to replace Goldsmith and head up the local channel.

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Hills CIO departs

Hills CIO Derek Brown was let go from the security distributor following an executive restructure.

He had been with Hills for less than three years, and was part of the transformative efforts of former managing director Ted Pretty.

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Citrix sacks Sydney staff

Citrix Labs Sydney closed its doors, letting around 30 long-time staff go.

The lay-offs came at the same time Citrix was hosting its partner summit in Las Vegas.

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Commvault appoints new channel manager

Commvault hired former EMC executive Mark Velthius as its new vice president of indirect business.

He takes on some of the responsibilities of former channel manager Ashley Diffey, who left to join F5 Networks.

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Check Point hires new MD

Cyber security firm Check Point named David De Laine as its regional managing director for Australia and New Zealand.

Prior to the move, De Laine was country manager for Clearswift Asia Pacific responsible for the management and development of the ANZ business.

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Xero Australia hires new MD

Xero Australia hired former Microsoft Business Group national sales manager Trent Innes as its new managing director.

He replaced former managing director Chris Ridd, who resigned after five years with the company.

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Inabox lands major Telstra scalp as new CTO

Telco and IT provider Inabox has hired former Telstra executive Chris Ford as its chief technology officer.

Prior to joining Inabox, Ford was general manager for Telstra Digital for four years. According to LinkedIn, Ford oversaw Telstra's $150 million digital transformation program aimed at improving sales and service delivery channels.

Ford was also CTO of telecommunications company Lucent Technologies for three years, and founded his own technology and marketing consultancy firm in 2008.

He replaces Michael Clarke, who joined Inabox as its first CTO in 2013. According to a media release, Clarke is leaving to follow “a personal passion outside the industry”.

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Telstra wholesale boss steps down

Telstra wholesale group executive Stuart Lee stepped down after five years in the position.

He was with the telco for 45 years, joining the company in 1971 as a cadet engineer when it was still the Postmaster-General’s Department.

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Software AG appoints new MD

The German-based software company hired Gordon Gakovic to head up its Australian business.

Prior to the appointment, he was Software AG's national sales director. He was also a senior account director for Oracle.

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BMC Software appoints new managing director

Chris Gibbs was named as the new Australian managing director to the global software company.

Gibbs was previously vice president of sales for the Endace division of Avago Technologies. He was also vice president of global accounts for CA Technologies.

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LiveTiles hires Sitecore channel boss

The Aussie start-up offering Microsoft-based user experience solutions hired Owen Brandt as its vice president for Asia Pacific.

Brandt was previously Brandt was previously alliance director for Sitecore, where he was responsible for Asia-Pacific partner strategy.

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IBM Australia hires Tim Youm

IBM AUstralia recruited former head of sales of MobileIron Tim Youm run ANZ sales for Big Blue's mobile group, MaaS360.

MaaS360 is an enterprise mobility management solution that aims to make working in the mobile world simple and safe.

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Ignia hires Microsoft, Dimension Data, Oakton exec

Perth's Ignia hired Steve McNally as a director to extending and diversifying its platform of products, services and solutions

McNally was most recently executive general manager for Oakton overseeing the business operations of development of executive teams.

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MOQdigital hires former HP director

Ryan Millar joined cloud computing company MOQdigital as its New South Wales state director.

Prior to the appointment, Millar was a director responsible for inside sales, sales engineering and marketing for HP in the South Pacific region.

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Dick Smith director becomes CEO of Best & Less

Rodney Orrock was director of buying and marketing for Dick Smith before leaving in August.

He took up the chief executive role of clothes retailer Best & Less after 14 years in the electronics retailer industry.

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Ingram hires QLD security boss

Ingram Micro hired Gavin McSherry to lead its Queensland and Northern Territory security business.

McSherry spent 16 years working with Hills Limited, most recently as a product sales specialist for CCTV.

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Vix hires former Pantha Corp owner

Ticketing technology company Vix hired Simon Smith as its CIO.

Smith brings 20 years of experience to the role, including high profile CIO and CTO roles at News Digital Media, AAPT, Omnilab Media Group and WebCentral.

Smith was also owner and director of Pantha Corp, a company sold to Bulletproof in 2014.

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Oracle storage appoints channel manager

Zanatto brings 15 years of experience to the new role, which includes a stint as channel and service provider manager for Asia-Pacific and Japan at Actifio.

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