SUSE names Charlie Yates as ANZ boss

Open source software vendor SUSE has appointed Charlie Yates as its new country director for Australia and New Zealand.

Yates, hired out of Citrix in April this year, replaces former SUSE sales director for ANZ Harry Kingma, who joined Micro Focus as ANZ alliances manager in February.

Based in Melbourne, Yates reports to APJ vice president and general manager Andy Jiang, and is responsible for the ANZ business operation and for driving growth in the region.

A canned statement from Yates reads, “I am delighted to be working closely with our global SUSE team, our ANZ customers and local partners to significantly drive the growth and adoption of open source within Australia and New Zealand.”

Yates last worked at Citrix within the ANZ senior leadership team as director for enterprise and government, a role he held for just over a year. Prior to that, he worked at Siemens, PTC, IBM and Microsoft in Australia and the United Kingdom.

Jiang said Yates’ appointment is “an important milestone” for SUSE as it looks to further expand its presence in the ANZ region.

“We are excited to welcome Charlie to the team and his vast experience in the technology sector is an asset to us,” Jiang said.

“Charlie’s extensive experience in technology puts him in a strong position to support and work with our resellers and customers on delivering SUSE’s open source technology and solutions in this region.”