January was a big month for firings, hirings, and retirings. Thus we have broken up our monthly Headcount column into two parts to make it easier to digest. Here is Pt. 2 of the latest executive hirings, promotions, and staff changes that happened in January. You can check out Pt. 1 here. 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 ([email protected]).

McAfee hired Peter Leav, former CEO of BMC Software, to replace its CEO Chris Young who has led the security software firm since it spun out of Intel in 2016. Leav will officially move into the CEO role on Feb. 3, and Young will remain at McAfee in an advisory role. Young will also become a senior advisor at TPG Capital, which acquired a majority stake in the security company from Intel.

The timing is significant as it comes on the heels of McAfee reportedly mulling either an initial public offering or a sale. Over the summer, reports surfaced that McAfee was preparing for an IPO that could value the company at more than $8 billion. The security vendor was also a rumored acquisition target for Thoma Bravo before the private equity firm bought Sophos.

VMware confirmed a “limited number” of layoffs, but a company spokesperson declined to say how many or what percentage of employees would be affected. The virtualization giant also won’t say which business units will see job cuts.

“There have been a limited number of changes to our workforce this month,” a VMware spokesperson wrote in an email to SDxCentral. However, CRN reports that VMware laid off several hundred employees globally.

The job cuts follow a massive VMware buying spree. VMware bought 10 companies over the past 12 months including Pivotal for $2.7 billion and Nyansa for an undisclosed amount.

Manju Agarwal joined the StorCentric board and will serve as an advisor. 

Avaya announced the appointment of Simon Harrison as SVP and chief marketing officer. Harrison previously served as research director and lead analyst for the Unified Communications and Contact Center industry at Gartner.

SecureAuth named Bil Harmer as its new chief information security officer (CISO) and chief evangelist. 

NetSPI hired Nabil Hannan to serve as its managing director. 

Pulse Secure welcomed Alex Thurber to its executive team as chief revenue officer (CRO).

ForgePoint Capital invested in its investment team with the promotion of Manoj Ramachandran to VP, plus the additions of Shane Shook and former Cyxtera Technologies CIO Leoncio Casusol as venture consultants. The digital identity provider also named David Hope as SVP for Asia-Pacific and Japan.

Tasktop appointed Jason Baldy as CRO. Baldy previously served as an advisor for the past five years and previously served as Tasktop’s VP of Americas sales.

Nexkey announced Amit Rele as VP of product.  

Veeam promoted Danny Allan from VP of product strategy to CTO and SVP of product strategy. 

Deutsche Telekom Chief Brand Officer Hans-Christian Schwingen announced his departure from the company effective April 1. Ulrich Klenke, who most recently served as a consultant for Volkswagen, was named Schwingen’s successor. 

Amazon named longtime Amazon Web Services (AWS) engineering executive Matt Garman as its new head of sales for its cloud division.

Ariel Kelman joined Oracle as its new EVP and chief marketing officer (CMO). Kelman previously served as VP of worldwide marketing at AWS.

Sentry welcomed Milin Desai as its new CEO. Desai previously served as GM for cloud services at VMware. 

Intel appointed Archana (Archie) Deskus as SVP and CIO. 

Kim Stevenson joined NetApp as SVP and GM of the company’s Foundational Data Services Business Unit. 

Cohesity welcomed former Commvault distribution channel director Martin Gibbons as head of its EMEA channel. Cohesity also announced the appointment of Steve Coad as country manager for Australia and New Zealand.

Andy Bryant stepped down from his post as chairman of Intel's board of directors but will remain a member of the board and executive advisor to the company. The board elected lead independent director Omar Ishrak to succeed Bryant as an independent chairman. Intel also named Alyssa Henry to its board of directors. 

Jay Parikh shared a Facebook status announcing his departure from the company where he served as a top engineering executive for more than a decade.

Matrixx appointed board member Glo Gordon to succeed Dave Labuda as CEO.

AMD hired Daniel McNamara as SVP and GM for its server business unit. It also announced four SVP promotions: Nazar Zaidi is now SVP of cores, server SoC, and systems IP engineering; Andrej Zdravkovic is now SVP of software development: Spencer Pan was named SVP of greater China sales and president of AMD greater China; and Jane Roney was named SVP of business operations.