It was a busy year in in unified communications and collaboration (UC&C), including for HR professionals. It is a dynamic industry.
Some firms had significant changes in leadership personnel, and some very few. Below are listed some of the more noteworthy changes; most positions on the list are replacements, but some are net-new. There's lot of reasons why leadership changes--some good and some bad. Sometimes a single change results in a cascade effect, with other execs following someone out the door.
Leadership changes will be among many developments covered in a session I will present at Enterprise Connect 2014 called UC Year In Review. This session will take a closer look at the events and trends over the past 12 months, and will offer views on the shifts that are occurring.
Below is a recap of 57 leadership appointments that took place within the industry during 2013.
January
NEC Corporation of America named Shinsuke Takahashi as its President and CEO. At Polycom, Patrick Ferriter was promoted to Vice President Product Management, Endpoints. Alex Doyle was named Vice President of Marketing and Product Management at Vidtel.
February
Giovanni Bosio was named the Chief Financial Officer of Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise. ShoreTel named Keith Nealon as President & General Manager of its Cloud Division.
March
Dave Rennyson was named Executive Vice President and General Manager at Genesys. Phil Bronsdon was promoted to Chief Technical Officer at Intelepeer. Mitel named Joe Vitalone as its Executive Vice President of Sales in the Americas.
April
The Alcatel-Lucent board appointed Michel Combes as Chief Executive Officer. Sean Shaughnessy was named Senior Vice President of Sales and Business Development at AVST. Jim Kruger was appointed as Chief Marketing Officer and Executive Vice President at Polycom.
May
8x8 appointed Ben Taft as its Vice President of Inside Sales. At Avaya, Brett Shockley was promoted to Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, and Joe Manuele to Vice President Global SP & SI Alliances. Rick Brown was named as Senior Vice President of North American Field Operations at Genesys. Mark Greenquist became the Chief Financial Officer at Unify (formerly Siemens Enterprise). Tim Gaines was hired as the Vice President of Sales, US, Caribbean and Latin America at Mitel. Scott Brown was named President Enterprise at Smart Technology. Keith Seidman became the CFO at Thinking Phone Networks.
June
ShoreTel hired Pankaj Malhortra to be its Senior Vice President of Engineering.
July
Avaya appointed Pierre-Paul Allard as its Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales and President Global Field Operations, and Brian Morgan Vice President US Sales. BroadSoft named Jeffrey Pearl as Vice President of Carrier Sales North America. At Genband, Executive Chairman David Walsh assumed the role of President and CEO. Craig Malloy returned to LifeSize as Interim CEO. Microsoft conducted a major reorganization which put Lync within the Applications and Services Group headed by Executive Vice President Qi Lu. Director Kevin Parker became Interim CEO of Polycom. Snom Technology named Usman Tahir as its Chief Technology Officer.
August
8x8 named Ramana Gottipati as Vice President of Product Management and Adoption. Avaya promoted Richard Steranka to Vice President of Worldwide Channels. BroadSoft named Andrew Wyatt Vice President Strategy. The ShoreTel board of directors promoted Don Joos to CEO.
September
The 8x8 board appointed Vikram Verma as CEO. Blue Jeans Network named James Campanini as Vice President and General Manager EMEA and Jay O'Conner as Chief Marketing Officer. Peder Ulander was named Vice President Collaboration Marketing at Cisco Systems. Vidyo promoted Joan Vandermate to Vice President of Marketing.
October
Jonathan Rosenberg returned to Cisco with the role of Vice President and Chief Technology Officer Collaboration. Also at Cisco, Jens Meggers was named Vice President and General Manager of Cloud Collaboration. Microsoft appointed Gurdeep Singh Pall as the Corporate Vice President of Skype which includes the Lync team, a group he previously managed. Mark Greenquist was named Chief Financial Officer at Sonus. Vidyo hired Dan Hochberg as Vice President, Worldwide Service Provider Business
November
Laurent Philonenko became the Vice President of Corporate Strategy and Development at Avaya. Blackberry named John Chen as Interim CEO and Executive Chair of the Board. Smart Technology appointed Nicholas Svensson as its Vice President Operations. Snom appointed Brian Kelley as CEO. XO appointed Christopher Ancell as CEO.
December
Blackberry made several appointments, including: James Mackey as Executive Vice President for Corporate Development and Strategic Planning, Mark Wilson as Senior Vice President of Marketing, and John Sims as head of its Global Enterprise Services business. Interactive Intelligence filled several new positions, including: Ray Cappola as Vice President of CaaS support, Jose Martinez as Vice President of CaaS infrastructure, and Steven Vaughan as Vice President of CaaS Delivery. Raul Vera was promoted to Chief Technology Officer at Fonality. The board at Polycom appointed Peter Leav as its CEO. Mark Roberts was named Chief Marketing Officer at ShoreTel. Sonus named Tony Scarfo as Executive Vice President of Technology and Business Development. Truphone named Guy Gettens as Vice President of Sales Americas. Dean Douglas was named as the next CEO of Unify.
Dave Michels is a Contributing Editor and Analyst at TalkingPointz.
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