Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) appointed Ben Fallon as its new VP for global channel and partner ecosystem networking sales.

London-based Fallon will replace fellow U.K.-bred talent Gordon Mackintosh, who took on the mantle only five months ago. Fallon previously served as Juniper Networks' VP of global sales and in that same position through the initial HPE acquisition period.

Mackintosh was based in San Jose, California. Fallon’s role is currently marked on LinkedIn as based in London.

Fallon has been with Juniper Networks for more than three years, where he began as VP of global partner and commercial sales. Fallon previously spent almost two-decades at HPE rival Cisco, a tenure that saw him manage Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) sales for the mainline group for more than 12 years, before joining Cisco Meraki to lead its global sales, a stint that saw him exit in 2022 as senior director of global virtual sales.

“I’m genuinely humbled to lead this amazing team of partner professionals, from our global organization to every HPE Partner account manager around the world," Fallon wrote on LinkedIn. "This team’s passion and expertise is second the (sic) none. And to our partners – I’m here to accelerate our shared goal of being the best networking company on the planet! Let's go!”

HPE’s new VP also thanked Mackintosh for his previous efforts, with no similar post from his predecessor at time of writing. HPE told CRN that Mackintosh was pursuing an opportunity outside the vendor.

Mackintosh spent 17 years at Cisco while based in California, before moving to Extreme Networks as its VP for worldwide channels and partner-led sales for four years, prior to making the Juniper leap in 2020.

In August, Mackintosh posted on LinkedIn that he was “Excited. Energized. Ready” to lead HPE’s worldwide channel and partner ecosystems networking sales in the AI era, stating: “With Juniper Mist’s AI-native platform and HPE’s scale, we’re positioned to lead in two of the most transformative opportunities of our time: AI for networking and networking for AI.”

More recently at HPE’s Discover Barcelona 2025 event, the outgoing VP threw some shade at HPE's rivals when he told an audience, including SDxCentral, that “you know you've launched a great partner program … when you overhear multiple partners and last names talking about its flexibility, because we're not driving them, forcing them in any given direction. So I think that flexibility and simplicity, in comparison to some other programs in the industry, will serve them as they pivot more and more into networking, if that's a choice that they want.”

Mackintosh’s exit follows the departure of fellow British exec Neil McRae from the Juniper stable. The London-based Scotsman, who was serving as chief network strategist, left HPE in December to join U.K. broadband firm CityFibre.