Here are some of the latest executive hirings, promotions, and staff changes. 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 Ali Longwell ([email protected]).

Apple Poaches From Intel for 5G Modems, Chips

Apple reportedly poached Messay Amerga, an Intel VP and GM that until last week led the company’s wireless modem technology arm, which included the company’s 5G product portfolio.

Amerga joined Intel in 2017 to head this unit after 19 years at Qualcomm, where he ultimately served as its VP of technology before departing. Amerga’s new role/title at Apple is still unknown.

Amerga is one of two Intel execs that Apple has poached — in February, Umashankar, a senior director and project engineer on Intel’s 5G modem team, joined the company. Both Amerga and Umashankar are reportedly joining Apple’s rumored in-house 5G modem chip unit.

These reports follow a settlement between Apple and Qualcomm in April. Following which, Intel exited the 5G smartphone modem business. Previously, Apple had been relying on Intel’s 5G modem for its own 5G smartphone so it appears to be hiring and conducting research to eventually bring development of these chips in house.

In the reshuffling for this 5G modem development team, Apple VP of Engineering Rubén Caballero left the company.

Google and Google Cloud CEOs to Exit Alphabet Board

Google’s parent company Alphabet announced this month that two prominent former Google CEOs would be exiting the board of directors. Both Diane Greene, former Google Cloud CEO, and Eric Schmidt, former Google CEO, will leave the board in June.

Schmidt has served on the board since 2001, serving as both the chairman and executive chairman during his tenure. He was the CEO of Google from 2001 to 2011 when co-founder Larry Page replaced him in the role. According to Alphabet, Schmidt will remain as a technical advisor to the company.

Greene was hired by Google in 2015 to build its cloud business, where she served as CEO of Google Cloud until this January, when ex-Oracle exec Thomas Kurain took her place. She has served on the board since 2012.

The company also announced that Robin Washington, EVP and CFO of Gilead Sciences, joined Alphabet’s board.

SAP President Leaves for Google Cloud

SAP executive board member and president of its cloud business group Robert Enslin resigned from the company. Enslin has been at the company since 1992, taking on his most recent role as president of the cloud group in 2017.

The company named Jennifer Morgan, currently an executive board member, to take over Enslin’s president duties in the cloud group. Morgan has worked at SAP for 15 years, most recently serving as the president of its Americas and Asia-Pacific Japan regions. SAP also appointed Adaire Fox-Martin as president of global customer operations.

Enslin then joined Google Cloud as the cloud provider’s president of global customer operations. He replaces Paul-Henri Ferrand, who the company says left to take a “new challenge at Google.” What this challenge is has yet to be announced.

Rackspace Names Third CEO in Two Years

Rackspace named Kevin Jones as its chief executive officer, replacing Joe Eazor in the role. This is the companies third CEO in two years.

Eazor only served as the CEO for a little under two years, joining the company in the role in 2017. He officially replaced Taylor Rhodes, who had been with the company for 9 years, serving as the president and CEO for the last two years of that tenure. Before Eazor’s appointment, Jeff Cotten, former president and chief customer and revenue officer at Rackspace, served as interim CEO. Cotten is now the CEO of Tenfold.

Jones joins the company from MV Transportation, a transportation service company, where he acted as the CEO. He has also worked at IT services provider DXC Technology, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), HP, Dell, and Electronic Data Systems.

Movers and Shakers

Cisco hired Jacqueline Guichelaar as its senior vice president and chief information officer (CIO). Guichelaar was most recently the CIO at Thomson Reuters.

NSS Labs promoted Jason Brvenik from chief technology officer to CEO. He replaces Vikram Phatak who has served as CEO since 2007. Phatak will still serve on the board of directors and remain on the executive team as the company’s founder.

Rodney Foreman left Nutanix as its VP of global channel chief after only 15 months in the position.

The Dynamic Spectrum Alliance named Martha Suárez as its president.

Arm appointed Inder Singh as executive vice president and chief financial officer.

Imperva hired Jim Deldine as its chief financial officer.

Cradlepoint brought on Mark Pugerude as its chief sales officer and Eric Purcell as its SVP of partner sales and alliances.

Rubrik appointed ex-Cisco executive Wendy Bahr as its chief commercial officer.

Voice service provider AireSpring hired former Aryaka sales director Dave Pierce as its director of global SD-WAN

Cloud business intelligence and analytics provider Sigma hired Ryan Ried, former Chef SVP, as its president of sales, marketing, and finance; Julie Lemieux, former Databricks leader, as its VP of design; and Wade Tibke, former VP at Tableau Software, as its VP of marketing.

Harness, a continuous delivery as-a-service platform company, named John Bonney as its chief financial officer.

Data center company Stack Infrastructure appointed Mike Casey as its chief data center officer.

Tata Communications hired Pathmal Gunawardana as its head of Americas.

ioTium opened a new location in Australia and named Lee Burrows as the Asia-Pacific director. It also hired Jason Cooper as VP of sales and Ganesh Ramamoorthy as VP of business development.

ThousandEyes appointed former Splunk CEO and president Godfrey Sullivan to its board of directors.

Workspace software provider CloudJumper hired former Cisco, VMware, and Citrix exec Frank Anderson as its CTO.

TM Forum elected Steffen Roehn to its board of directors for a two-year stint.

GTT nominated Benjamin Stein to its board of directors.

Analytics and monitoring firm Kentik named former AppDynamics VP Jonah Kowall as its chief technology officer.

Snowflake appointed Frank Slootman as its chairman and CEO. Slootman replaced Bob Muglia who served as CEO for five years.

Hybrid-cloud management platform CloudBolt hired Grant Ho as its chief marketing officer, Russell McGuire as its VP of worldwide sales, Tripp Millican as its VP of engineering, and Maya Enright as its VP of human resources.

DigitalOcean named Lysa Dahlin as its chief people officer.

SD-WAN provider Masergy hired Maria Gotes as its chief human resources officer.

Data networks company Sterlite Tech hired Jitendra Balakrishnan as its chief technology officer of its optical communications.

Security company Confiant appointed two new executives: Amit Dodeja as chief operating officer and John Murphy as chief quality officer.

Data governance software provider Collibra hired Mike Lyons, former head of security at ServiceNow, to a newly-created role of chief information security officer (CISO).

Cloud hosting provider Infinitely Virtual named Scott McDonald as its VP of sales and marketing.

Data, video, and voice vendor Allbridge named Mike Schaffer as its chief financial officer and Tony Buglak as its VP of finance and controller.

Analog technology company Analog Devices promoted Daniel Leibholz from VP of its communications business unit to chief technology officer.

Technology company Techniche named former Microsoft and Cisco exec Tom Caldwell as its chief technology officer.

Security firm Nixu elected Anders Silwer as a member of its board of directors. Silwer served in the Swedish Defense Forces and still acts as a reserve officer.