Here are some of the latest executive hirings, promotions, and staff changes that occurred during December 2016. 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 Wyatt Carlson ([email protected]).

The Linux Foundation appointed former Dell executive Arpit Joshipura as its general manager of networking and orchestration. Joshipura’s primary role with the open source foundation will be to help accelerate deployments of next generation open networking technologies.

Joshipura has held executive positions with startups and larger enterprises including Prevoty, Dell/Force 10, Ericsson/Redback, and Ciena where he led business strategy, product management, marketing, engineering, and technology standards functions. He also has experience with open source technology — not surprisingly.

The Linux Foundation hosts a number of open source projects including OpenDaylight, OPNFV, Open-O, Open vSwitch, ON.Lab, CORD, and ONOS.

Hakan Eriksson, formerly Ericsson’s CEO for Australia and New Zealand, will be joining Australian telco provider Telstra as CTO.

Eriksson had also served as Ericsson’s chief strategy officer for Southeast Asia and Oceania and served nine years as the company’s CTO. Eriksson is also on the board of the European Australian Business Council (EABC).

His move to the telco isn’t necessarily surprising. Before Eriksson joined, Ericsson and Telstra partnered last year on 5G testing and standards. The new CTO will begin his role at the end of February.

Software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) provider Viptela named Russ Harris as its senior vice president of operations. Harris will focus on building supply chains and distribution channels for service provider and enterprise customers.

Prior to joining Viptela, Harris was president and COO of Breathometer, which developed breath analysis technology. At Breathometer Harris’ roles included manufacturing, material sourcing, inventory management, logistics, quality, technical support, training, and cost reduction.

Harris has also worked for companies such as Echelon, NetDynamics, and SGI.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Krish Prabhu, former CTO with AT&T, has left the company and is now serving as an executive partner with Siris Capital.

The Open Networking Foundation (ONF) appointed Timon Sloane as vice president of standards and membership.

SD-WAN provider TELoIP announced that it has brought on Kevin Suitor as the company’s chief marketing officer.

Satellite operator SES announced that its vice president of institutional relations and communications, Christine Leuriquin, was elected to the board of the 5G Infrastructure Association.

Former AT&T architect Margaret Chiosi has joined Huawei. It is unclear what her position with the company will be, and Huawei has not returned a request for a comment.

BMC Software named former Polycom executive Peter Leav president and CEO. Leav succeeds Bob Beauchamp, who will continue to serve as the company’s chairman.

Storage and networking company Marvell appointed Thomas Lagatta as its executive vice president of worldwide sales and marketing.

DataCore Software named Carrie Reber vice president of worldwide marketing.

Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins tweeted his congratulations to David Ulevitch on his promotion to group leader of the company’s security business. Ulevitch is taking over for David Goeckeler, who is VP and general manager of Cisco’s networking group.

Big Switch Networks CTO Rob Sherwood announced that he is leaving the company to work at Facebook.

Tenable Network Security announced that is has appointed Amit Yoran as chairman and CEO effective Jan. 3. Previously, he served as the president of RSA.

Red Hat announced that CFO Frank Calderoni is stepping down. The company intends for Eric Shandler, VP of finance and accounting, to serve as an interim CFO.