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Channel roundup: Who's gone where?
The revolving doors in the industry have been spinning over the last week as some senior figures have chosen to step aside and some fresh blood has been sought elsewhere to help fuel growth
Very much a case of comings and goings this week as the industry gets the chance to bid farewell to a couple of senior figures that have decided the time is right to bow out of their current roles.
The data centre services specialist has unveiled Rob Coupland as its CEO. He comes with a strong background in cloud, telecoms and data centres, with a CV that includes time at Digital Reality and Telecity Group. He replaces Niclas Sanfridsson who has been CEO for the past two years and is stepping down to pursue other business interests. “It is an excellent time to join Pulsant as the company continues to grow and demonstrate its leadership in the datacentre market. I am honoured to lead the business as it continues its expansion journey and delivers a world-class service to both existing and future customers. I am excited by the opportunity and look forward to working with the dedicated, professional and expert team at Pulsant,” said Coupland.
Exertis has created a new role for Phillip Turner to step into. He becomes the distributor's first global head of voice of the customer reporting to Neal Johnston, Exertis, global operations, managing director. Turner joins from IG Design Group where he spent four years, most recently as managing director of their licensing business. His CV also includes a three year spell as business development director at Spicers. The new role involves developing the voice of the customer vision and strategy and looking after the customer feedback model including data analysis and insights. “As Exertis expands on a global basis, it’s now more critical than ever that we listen to our customers and use their feedback to influence our go-to-market strategy. In an extremely competitive market, customers demand a personalised experience and really knowing and understanding our customers is critical. Voice of the customer is all about delivering a culture of putting our customers at the heart of everything we do and ensuring that by analysing data and feedback, Exertis can take appropriate actions in order to improve customer experience and deliver positive business outcomes,” said Johnston.
The software enterprise player turned one job into two last week after Bill McDermott, the CEO of SAP, announced he was standing down after 17 years at the firm. McDermott was co-CEO with Jim Hagemann Snabe between 2008 and 2013, but has been running the firm on his own for the past six years. SAP chose to return to that dual CEO approach with Jennifer Morgan, vice-president of SAP’s cloud business group, and Christian Klein, chief operations officer at the supplier, being appointed co-CEOs, with immediate effect. Hasso Plattner, a co-founder of SAP and chairman of its supervisory board, thanked the outgoing CEO and said that McDermott had helped the business make the crucial transition to a cloud world: " Bill made invaluable contributions to this company and he was a main driver of SAP’s transition to the cloud, which will fuel our growth for many years to come".
The analyst house that works closely with the channel, sourcing a lot of its sales data from distributors, has announced that after more than three decades the firm's co-founder and CEO Jeremy Davies has announced his retirement. The business started in 1983 tracking sales and pricing of PCs in the UK. It has grown to keep an eye on sales of numerous technologies globally. "After thirty-six years at the helm, it's time to take a step back," said Davies. "Context has been my life's work, and I leave it ready and able to take on the new opportunities in our industry afforded by digitalisation and big data." He added that he was proud to leave behind a business staffed by good people with a solid base to build on for the future. "I'm leaving them with a strong company that's growing healthily based on an impressive portfolio of new developments in Analytics, Business Intelligence and Artificial Intelligence.”
