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 Wyatt Carlson ([email protected]).

Chinese software vendor ZTE recruited former Deputy Assistant Secretary for the U.S. Department of Commerce, National Telecommunications, and Information Administration Angela Simpson as it VP of U.S. government affairs.

Simpson will be based in Washington, D.C., and will be responsible for managing the company’s government relations and public policy matters in the U.S. The role will also involve legislative and regulatory initiatives about public policy issues that could potentially impact the company.

In 2012, the U.S. government published a reported stating that the company was a potential security risk and advised the nation’s largest telcos not to use its products. To worsen the situation, in March the company was fined $1.2 billion for breaking U.S. sanctions by shipping equipment made with U.S. components to Iran and for sending telecom equipment and software made in the U.S. to North Korea.

Since then the company has undergone some changes. In March, ZTE named Yin Yimin as chairman of the board, replacing Zhao Xianming who will remain with the company as its president and executive director. The company said it wanted to separate the roles of chairman and president.

During his short tenure, one of Xianming’s main tasks was to improve the company’s export compliance program. He installed a new compliance committee with the intention of overhauling the company’s compliance program. He also restructured ZTE’s legal department and separated it from the compliance department. 

Communications company Avaya is replacing its CEO Kevin Kennedy as the company attempts to emerge from bankruptcy. Effective Oct. 1, Kennedy will retire and be replaced by Jim Chirico, the company’s current COO and global sales leader. Kennedy will join the company’s board and has agreed to remain as an advisor to the company.

While Kennedy helped Avaya transition to a software and services company through its acquisition of Nortel’s enterprise division, the CEO also played a key role in making sure the company was positioned to bounce back from its Chapter 11 bankruptcy with more focus on customer and team engagement. A few months ago the company sold its networking business to Extreme Networks for approximately $100 million.

Chirico joined Avaya in 2008, and has held a variety of positions. As COO and global sales leader, he is responsible for operations, global sales, sales operations, human resources, and quality. Prior to joining Avaya, Chirico served as EVP of global operations, development, and manufacturing at Seagate Technology. Before joining Seagate, he spent 17 years as an IBM executive, including leadership over its networking division.

Qualcomm President Derek Aberle is stepping down from his role after 17 years with the company. His departure is effective December 31. During his tenure, Aberle helped drive the company’s overall global strategy.

Specifically, Aberle was a driving force in developing and growing the company’s 4G licensing division in terms of revenue and profits. Aberle also played a part in expanding the company’s business into China, including negotiations with the Chinese government.

Aberle joined Qualcomm in 2000 after representing the company as an outside counsel for several years.

As part of the company’s transition plan, Qualcomm Executive Vice President and Qualcomm Technology Licensing President Alex Rogers will report directly to the company’s CEO Steve Mollenkopf. Rogers has run the QTL division since March 2016, and has held several leadership positions with the company since he joined in 2001.

CloudScale Capital Partners brought on former Juniper executive Kim Perdikou as a partner. Perdikou most recently served as EVP at Juniper, but retired about four years ago. She has been active on various boards since her retirement.

Oracle is hiring more than 5,000 new engineers, consultants, sales, and support people into its growing cloud business.

Megaport appointed Tim Hoffman as CTO, effective Oct. 1. Hoffman will be responsible for managing product, procurement, network operations, network architecture, and software development.

Data platform vendor Pure Storage named Charles Giancarlo as CEO and a member of the company’s board of directors. Giancarlo succeeds Scott Dietzen who stepped down from the CEO position and was appointed chairman of the board.

Intel’s Stacy Smith, group president of manufacturing, operations, and sales, retired after 30 years with the company.

Palo Alto Networks CFO Steffan Tomlinson will be stepping down from his role to retire. Tomlinson will remain CFO until the company finds a replacement. The company also named Lee Klarich as EVP and chief product officer.

Following Windstream’s acquisition of Broadview, the service provider named Broadview COO Brian Crotty president of its mid-market and small business division. Other Broadview leaders joining Windstream include Mario Deriggi, who was SVP of sales; Stephen Farkouh, SVP of cloud technology and platform development; Sanjay Patel, VP of platform development at Broadview; and Tim Bell, VP of integration management and Broadview operations.

SK Telecom CTO and chairman of the Telecom Infra Project (TIP) Alex Choi is stepping down from both roles.

Cotiviti Holdings CFO Steve Senneff resigned from his role with the company to join cloud company DigitalOcean as CFO.

Computing platform provider NapaTech hired Ken Way as its CSO, where he will lead the company's worldwide sales organization.

Security company RiskSense appointed Danny Quist as the company’s first CTO. 

Sedona Systems brought on Michael Casey and Benjamin Shat to the North American sales leadership team to support its NetFusion product line.

Exabeam announced that Steve Moore joined the company as VP and chief security strategist. Most recently, Moore served as VP of cybersecurity analytics at Anthem.

Mojo Networks appointed Michael Printz as VP of sales for North America. Prior to Mojo, Printz served as VP of worldwide sales at Mimosa Networks, a fixed 5G wireless solutions company.

Ciena brought on William Fathers to its board of directors. Fathers also serves on the board of directors at Cologix.

Wanshi Chen, principal engineer and manager at Qualcomm Technologies, was elected to serve as chair of the company’s 3GPP 5G standardization working group.

Red Hat’s board of directors appointed Narendra Gupta as chairman of the board

Performance monitoring company InfoVista appointed Mark Pugerude to CSO, where he will oversee the company’s global sales team.

Cloud security company RedLock named Ankur Shah as VP of products and appointed Viswa Soubramanien as VP of engineering.