Here are some of the latest executive hirings, promotions, and staff changes that happened in March. 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]) for inclusion in the monthly headcount column.

Cisco, Hitachi Vantara Slicing Hundreds of Silicon Valley Jobs

Cisco and Hitachi Vantara were both listed as having cut or planning to cut hundreds of Silicon Valley jobs, according to the California Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) release.

The document notes that Cisco eliminated 395 positions late last month across its operations in Milpitas and San Jose, California. The cuts were listed as “layoff permanent” in the filing.

Cisco last August cut nearly 500 positions in those same cities, which included software engineers, managers, and technical leaders. Hitachi Vantara filed similar permanent layoff plans for 151 employees in Santa Clara. Hitachi Vantara opened its new headquarters in Santa Clara early last year.

T-Mobile’s Post-Merger Executive Team Takes Shape

Now that the merger of T-Mobile US and Sprint is finally over, the long awaited executive shuffle will soon take shape. The company detailed the makeup of its senior leadership team in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

As previously announced, Mike Sievert, who currently serves as president and COO at T-Mobile US, will assume the position of CEO of the combined company on May 1. Many other longtime T-Mobile executives will also remain at the company, at least through the merger.

AT&T Puts More Jobs on the Chopping Block

AT&T is weighing a long list of plans to cut tens of billions of dollars in costs that will likely result in even more dramatic job losses for the connectivity and entertainment giant’s employees. The company previously said it plans to cut $1.5 billion in labor-related costs this year.

AT&T shed 20,420 jobs last year, representing a 7.6% decline from 268,200 jobs in 2018 to 247,800 employees at the end of 2019.

A significant portion of those job losses are attributable to AT&T’s six-year effort to virtualize its core network functions with SDN and a more recent push to move more of its non-network applications to the cloud. It’s unclear how many employees AT&T plans to dismiss this year.

Nokia Taps New Captain After Missing 5G Boat

Nokia’s top leadership is heading for the exits as the company continues to struggle amid a heightened period of 5G deployment activity. CEO Rajeev Suri will leave his position on Aug. 31, and Chairman Risto Siilasmaa plans to leave his role in April.

The struggling infrastructure vendor didn’t search far for a new CEO or board chairperson. Pekka Lundmark, who currently serves as president and CEO of Fortum, an energy company also headquartered in Espoo, Finland, has been tapped to replace Suri on Sept. 1. And Sari Baldauf, vice chair of Nokia’s board, is expected to assume the position of chair when the board votes next month.

Headcount Movers and Shakers

David Goeckeler left Cisco, where he served as EVP and GM of that company’s $34 billion networking and security business, and joined Western Digital as its new CEO and member of the Western Digital Board of Directors.

NetApp welcomed Mike Berry  as its new EVP and CFO, replacing former EVP and CFO Ron Pasek who retired in February.

Founder and former CEO of Neterra Networks Chris Scott joined Viyu Network Solutions in August 2019 as CEO, according to co-founder and partner Lance Wiseman.

Copper named Cory Thomas, former InVision and Xello executive, as its VP of engineering. And Emilia D'Anzica joined the company as its new CCO.

IEEE Standards Association (IEEE SA) announced Silona Bonewald as executive director to lead IEEE SA Open.

Michael DiFilippo left AppDirect to join AI-powered call tracking and conversational analytics provider Invoca as its new CFO.

BlackBerry added Marjorie Dickman to its executive team as the company’s first chief government affairs and public policy officer.

Silicon Valley entrepreneur Tom Lounibos joined Accenture Ventures as its new managing director.

TraceLink expanded its leadership team with the additions of Jim Mills as the head of data science and Jamshed Dubash as general manager of its Smart Supply and Logistics/IoT business unit.

SiPearl appointed Ying-Chih Yang to its leadership team where he will serve as the company's new CTO.

Balbix welcomed Shelly Morales to its leadership team as the company’s new VP of people.

Optiva announced Ganesh Balasubramanian as its new CRO.

Jeff Lovin, Woolpert SVP and market director, was named president of the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS).

Puppet announced the appointment of Susan Nash, SVP at VMware, to Puppet’s board of directors and promoted Paul Heywood CRO.

ForgeRock hired Renee Beckloff to serve as VP of cloud success and Sudhakar Peddibhotla as its new VP of engineering for autonomous identity.

Qualcomm named Heather Ace as EVP of human resources.

Rackspace's expansion into the Middle East will be led by George Pawlyszyn who has been appointed as GM, Middle East and Africa (MEA).

Progressive delivery and experimentation company Optimizely welcomed Lawrence Bruhmuller as CTO.

Rakesh Taori was appointed to serve as CableLabs VP of wireless.

Microsoft co-founder and technology advisor Bill Gates stepped down from the company’s Board of Directors. He still continue to serve as technology advisor to CEO Satya Nadella.

Ordr deepened its executive bench with the additions of Jeff Horne as CSO, Danelle Au as CMO, and Ratnesh Saxena as VP of product management.

Affirmed Networks named Anand Krishnamurthy president and CEO.

Tone H. Bachke will become the CFO for Telenor Group effective from May 1st.

No-code mobile app platform provider Turbo Systems welcomed Jen Grant, who jumped ship at Google to captain no-code mobile app platform provider Turbo Systems as its new CEO.