PowerMoves in Technology
AUGUST 2012
This month, in addition to the rich information about leadership changes at Silicon Valley’s technology prominent companies, I want to share with you the Top 10 Trends in Executive Employment Market. According to the report, “more than 25% of companies are adding new management positions & more than 50% are ‘trading up’ existing executive roles to fill gaps or improve teams”. We’re seeing these trends in our everyday work at TowerHunter. Thanks for reading and as always email me anytime to share your thoughts or insights. Simon Bloch, Partner, TowerHunter executive search, (650) 937-9150 or [email protected].
Executive Appointments
Executive Leaves
Board Appointments and Leaves
Executive Compensation Changes
Executives on Lookout
About Simon Bloch and TowerHunter
Executive Appointments
Advent Software Appoints David Peter Hess as CEO
Advent Software announced the appointment of it’s President, David Peter F. Hess, 41, as Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Hess succeeds Stephanie G. DiMarco, Founder and CEO who resigned. As CEO of the company, Mr. Hess’ annual base salary will increase to $475,000.
Aviat Networks Appoints Heinz Stumpe as SVP and Chief Sales Officer
Aviat Networks announced that it has appointed Heinz Stumpe as senior vice president and chief sales officer. In his new role, Mr. Stumpe will be responsible for global sales and professional services. Mr. Stumpe joined Aviat Networks as a director of marketing in 1996 and has more than 20 years of experience in wireless transmission technology. Before his appointment as chief sales officer, Mr. Stumpe was the senior vice president and chief operating officer of Aviat Networks and held a variety of roles including vice president of strategic accounts, product line management and business development.
Electronic Arts Names Blake Jorgensen as CFO
Electronic Arts named Blake Jorgensen as chief financial officer. Mr. Jorgensen, age 52, has served as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for Levi Strauss & Co. since 2009. Prior to joining Levi Strauss & Co., Mr. Jorgensen was Chief Financial Officer of Yahoo! Inc., from 2007 to 2009. Prior to joining Yahoo! Inc., Mr. Jorgensen was the Chief Operating Officer and Co-Director of Investment Banking at Thomas Weisel Partners, which he co-founded in 1998. Mr. Jorgensen’s annual base salary will be $650,000 and his discretionary target bonus percentage will be 100% of his annual base salary. EA has agreed to pay Mr. Jorgensen a one-time bonus of $350,000 at the time of hire.
Harmonic Appoints Peter Alexander as CMO, Krishnan Padmanabhan as SVP and Nimrod Ben-Natan as SVP/GM
Harmonic announced key appointments to its executive team. Peter Alexander, is named senior vice president and chief marketing officer. Alexander joins Harmonic with more than three decades of experience in sales, marketing, and engineering hardware and software solutions for the telecommunications industry. He spent 15 years with Cisco Systems, where he served as vice president of worldwide field marketing. Krishnan Padmanabhan, is named senior vice president of video products. Padmanabhan joins Harmonic after having most recently served as vice president and general manager of the Manageability and Ecosystem Integration business unit at NetApp. Nimrod Ben-Natan is named senior vice president and general manager of Edge and Access business unit. For the past five years, Ben-Natan has led Harmonic`s product marketing, solutions and strategy group.
Informatica Names John McGee as EVP of Worldwide Field Operations
Informatica announced John McGee has joined the company as executive vice president of Worldwide Field Operations. McGee brings a sales leadership track record including Adobe, Documentum, EMC and Thunderhead.
LeapFrog Appoints Ray Arthur as CFO
LeapFrog Enterprises appointed Raymond L. Arthur to serve as the company’s Chief Financial Officer. Mr. Arthur replaces Mr. Etnyre, who will remain as an employee of the Company through October 1, 2012. Mr. Arthur, 53, served as Chief Financial Officer at The Pep Boys – Manny, Moe, & Jack from 2008 to 2012. Prior to that, Mr. Arthur served in various capacities for Toys “R” Us. Mr. Arthur will receive an annual salary in the amount of $525,000 and will be eligible to receive incentive compensation of $393,750 per year. In addition, Mr. Arthur will receive certain relocation benefits, including a monthly housing and travel subsidy of $10,000.
LSI Appoints Phil Brace and Sudhakar Sabada to EVP and Greg Huff to CTO
LSI Corporation announced several executive promotions: Phil Brace, as Executive Vice President of the newly formed Storage Solutions Group. Sudhakar Sabada, as Executive Vice President of the new Operations and Central Engineering group. Greg Huff is appointed to Chief Technology Officer, with oversight of corporate strategy and technology roadmaps. Phil Brace and Sudhakar Sabada will report to Jeff Richardson, LSI’s COO. Greg Huff will report to Abhi Talwalkar, the CEO.
OpenTable Names Joseph Essas as Chief Technology Officer
OpenTable appointed Joseph Essas as Chief Technology Officer. Mr. Essas, age 41, has served as Chief Technology Officer of eHarmony since 2010 and Vice President, Engineering and Operations of eHarmony from 2008 to 2010. Prior to eHarmony, Mr. Essas served in various positions at Yahoo! from 2002 to 2008, most recently as Vice President, Engineering. Mr. Essas will receive an annual base salary of $350,000 and an annual performance bonus opportunity targeted at $150,000. Mr. Essas will be provided a supplemental cash retention award of $150,000.
ServiceSource Appoints Christine Heckart to CMO and Natalie McCullough to Chief Strategy Officer
ServiceSource announced the appointment of Christine Heckart to the role of chief marketing officer. Heckart reports to Mike Smerklo, chief executive officer and chairman of the board. Prior to this appointment she was CMO of NetApp. Prior to NetApp, Heckart was general manager of marketing and business development for the TV, video, and music business at Microsoft Corporation and previously served as vice president and CMO of worldwide marketing for Juniper Networks. Natalie McCullough, who held the position of CMO for ServiceSource for the past three years, will assume the role of chief strategy officer at ServiceSource.
ShoreTel Appoints David Petts as Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales
ShorTel announced David Petts will be joining the company as senior vice president of worldwide sales, reporting directly to ShoreTel CEO, Peter Blackmore. Petts comes to ShoreTel from Nokia, where he spent seven years in sales leadership roles. Prior to Nokia, Petts held a number of executive management roles with Hewlett Packard (HP) and Compaq in both the U.S. and U.K. The recently announced new sales leadership including Joe Vitalone in channel management, North America sales led by Tim Gaines, and Mark Arman who leads international sales and worldwide distribution, will report to Petts.
Shutterfly Names Brian Regan Chief Financial Officer
Shutterfly announced appointment of Brian Regan, age 41, as Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President of the company. Since 2010, Mr. Regan served as Chief Financial Officer of Nextag, Inc., a comparison shopping website for products and services. Prior to that from 2008 to 2010, he served as Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President of Ticketmaster Entertainment, Inc. Prior to joining Ticketmaster, from 2004 to 2008, Mr. Regan held various positions at Expedia, Inc., including Senior Vice President, Finance, North America and Vice President, Finance, North America. From 1995 to 2004, Mr. Regan held various positions at LendingTree, Inc. and PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLC. Mr. Regan will receive an annual base salary of $400,000 and will be eligible for a bonus of up to 30% of base salary. In addition, Mr. Regan received a $120,000 hire-in bonus.
Symantec Announces Appointment of Stephen Bennett as CEO
Symantec Corporation announced the appointment of Stephen M. Bennett, age 58, as its new President and Chief Executive Officer in addition to his role as Chairman of the Board. Mr. Bennett has served as a member of the Board since 2010. Mr. Bennett was President and Chief Executive Officer of Intuit from 2000 to 2008. Prior to Intuit, Mr. Bennett was at General Electric Corporation (GE) for 23 years. From 1999 to 2000, he was an executive vice president and a member of the board of directors of GE Capital, the financial services subsidiary of GE. He was President and Chief Executive Officer of GE Capital e-Business, and he was President and Chief Executive Officer of GE Capital Vendor Financial Services from 1996 through 1999. Mr. Bennett also serves as a director of Qualcomm, AMR Corporation and a private company.
VMware Appoints Pat Gelsinger as CEO, Paul Maritz moves to the Role of Chief Strategist
VMware announced that Patrick Gelsinger will succeed Paul Maritz as VMware’s Chief Executive Officer, effective September 1, 2012. Mr. Maritz will continue his service as a member of VMware’s Board of Directors. Following his departure as Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Maritz will serve in a technology strategist role at EMC Corporation, VMware’s parent company and controlling stockholder. Mr. Gelsinger, age 51, has served with EMC as President and Chief Operating Officer, EMC Information Infrastructure Products since 2009. Mr. Gelsinger joined EMC from Intel Corporation, where he was Senior Vice President and Co-General Manager of Intel Corporation’s Digital Enterprise Group from 2005 to 2009 and served as Intel’s Senior Vice President, Chief Technology Officer from 2001 to 2005. Prior to this, Mr. Gelsinger led Intel’s Desktop Products Group.
Yahoo Appoints Marissa Mayer as CEO
Yahoo! recruited Marissa Mayer, a former Google executive and a well-known technologist, who joined Google as its 20th employee and first female engineer. She is credited with maintaining the company’s Spartan home page for a decade and overseeing such products as Gmail, Google News, and image, book and product search. In 2010, she became vice president of local, maps and location services.
Executive Leaves
Advent Software Stephanie DiMarco Resigns as CEO
Advent Software announced resignation of Stephanie G. DiMarco, founder and CEO. Ms. DiMarco will continue to serve as a member of the board and also as an employee in the role of Strategic Advisor. In such role, Ms. DiMarco will receive an annual base salary of $150,000.
AMD’s Bob Feldstein Leaves for NVIDIA as VP of Technology Licensing
Bob Feldstein, who played a key role in AMDs relationships with game console makers, joined NVIDIA, where he will now become the vice president of technology licensing. Mr. Feldstein was a part of ATI before AMD acquired that company in 2006 and spearheaded negotiations with console makers.
Google’s Marissa Mayer Leaves for Yahoo
Marissa Mayer, one of the top executives at Google, is leaving for the post of chief executive officer of Yahoo.
HP Deputy General Counsel Porrini Leaves for Video Ad Company YuMe
Hewlett-Packard’s Paul Porrini, vice president, deputy general counsel and assistant secretary, has left the company and has taken a job as general counsel and secretary at YuMe, a company that provides video advertising software and services.
Informatica’s Paul Hoffman Announces Retirement
Paul Hoffman announced his planned retirement from his position as Informatica’s executive vice president and president, worldwide field operations by the end of 2012.
LeapFrog CFO Resigns to Pursue Personal Interests
July 5 Chief Financial Officer Mark Etnyre quit to pursue personal interests. The resignation of Etnyre, the company’s finance head since March 2010, would be effective Oct. 1.
PMC-Sierra’s Michael Zellner Resigns as CFO
Michael W. Zellner announced his intention to resign as Vice President of Finance and Chief Financial Officer of PMC-Sierra to pursue other professional opportunities outside of the semiconductor industry.
Silicon Graphics and James Wheat Enter into Separation Agreement
Silicon Graphics International and James Wheat, who had previously served as the company’s Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Accounting Officer, entered into a separation agreement providing for a severance payment to Mr. Wheat of twelve months base salary, COBRA health benefits for 12 months post-termination and extension of the exercise period of Mr. Wheat’s outstanding stock options until June 2013.
Symantec’s Enrique Salem Resigns as CEO
Enrique Salem resigned from his role as President and Chief Executive Officer of the company and from the Board of Directors. Mr. Salem is entitled to receive cash severance and equity acceleration benefits for termination without cause as provided by the terms of his employment agreement
Xilinx Enters into Retirement Agreement with Vincent Ratford
Xilinx entered into a retirement agreement with Vincent Ratford, who was VP of Marketing. The Retirement Agreement provides that Mr. Ratford will receive a payment in the amount of $277,500 and payment of premiums required to continue Mr. Ratford’s health care coverage for 13 months.
Yahoo’s Ross Levinsohn Departs after Marissa Mayer Gets CEO Job
Yahoo!’s Ross Levinsohn, who was interim chief executive officer, is leaving after the board passed him over for the top job and recruited Marissa Mayer, a former Google executive. Levinsohn, a veteran of social-networking service MySpace and search engine AltaVista, was known for interacting well with advertisers. Levinsohn, as part of his compensation for being interim CEO, will receive restricted stock units, valued at $1.07 million. The company also awarded 250,000 stock options at a strike price of $15.80.
Board Appointments and Leaves
eHealth Names Ellen Tauscher to the Board
Former U.S. Rep. Ellen Tauscher has been named an independent director at eHealth. Tauscher is a Democratic Party member who represented the 10th Congressional District centered in Walnut Creek from 1997 to 2009. She then served as Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs from 2009 to February of this year when she retired from government. Since returning to the private sector earlier in 2012, Ms. Tauscher has provided expert advice to the State Department on arms control, missile defense and civil nuclear cooperation and joined the board of directors of Invacare Corporation. Prior to serving in Congress, Ms. Tauscher worked in investment banking and the financial industry in various roles.
Fortinet’s John Walecka Resigns from the Board
Mr. John Walecka, a partner at venture capitalist firm Redpoint Ventures, notified Fortinet that he was resigning as a director effective July 18, 2012.
Harmonic Adds Mitzi Reaugh to the Board
Mitzi Reaugh, senior vice president, strategy and business development at Miramax, a leading independent film and television studio, is joining Harmonic’s board. Reaugh previously served as senior vice president of client solutions at The Nielsen Company. As part of NBC Universal`s Digital Media organization, Reaugh was a core member of the team that founded Hulu.com and was later appointed General Manager of the NBC Digital Health Network.
Informatica Appoints Amy Chang to the Board
Informatica appointed Amy Chang to the Board of Directors. Ms. Chang has been the global head of product, ads measurement and reporting for Google since 2010. Ms. Chang joined Google in 2005, and has served in various management positions including director of product management, group product manager, senior product manager and product manager. Prior to joining Google, Ms. Chang held various positions at eBay Inc. and McKinsey & Company.
Inphi Appoints David Liddle to the Board
Inphi appointed Mr. David Liddle, Venture Partner at US Venture Partners, as a member of the Inphi Board.
Mattson Technology Announces Changes to the Board of Directors
Mattson Technology announced that Hans Betz has retired as chairman of the board and a director of the company. Ken Kannappan, chief executive officer of Plantronics, Inc. and former chairman of the board of Mattson, will replace Mr. Betz as chairman. Ken Smith, a long-term director of Mattson and former President of WaferTech and Vice President of Operations of Micron Technology, will become vice-chairman of Mattson’s board.
Oclaro Announces Changes to the Board of Directors
In connection with the consummation of the merger with Opnext, the size of the Oclaro’s board of directors was increased from six to ten and the following persons were appointed to the Board: Harry Bosco, David Lee, Kendall W. Cowan and William L. Smith. Each of the new directors was a director of Opnext. Mr. Bosco also served as Opnext’s chief executive officer.
Rambus Appoints Charles Kissner to Its Board of Directors
Rambus announced the appointment of Mr. Charles Kissner as a director to its Board. Mr. Kissner, who is Chairman of the Board at Aviat Networks, previously served as Aviat’s chief executive officer from 2010 to 2011. Prior to Aviat Networks, Mr. Kissner was Chairman and CEO of Stratex Networks, vice president and general manager of M/A-Com, a manufacturer of radio and microwave communications products, President and CEO of Aristacom International, and executive vice-president of Fujitsu Network Switching, Inc.
Sigma’s Julien Nguyen Resigns from the Board
Julien Nguyen provided notice to Sigma Designs that he will not stand for re-election to the company’s Board of Directors.
Zynga Elects Ellen Siminoff to the Board
Zynga elected former Yahoo executive Ellen F. Siminoff to serve as a member of the Board of Directors. Siminoff, currently chief executive of education company Shmoop University Inc., previously helmed Efficient Frontier, an advertising technology company that was acquired by Adobe earlier this year.
Executive Compensation Changes
IXYS Approves Compensation of CEO and President
IXYS amended employment agreement, pursuant to which Dr. Nathan Zommer, Chief Executive Officer of the company, will be paid salary at the rate of $580,000 per year and will be eligible for a performance bonus annually. The company also amended employment agreement, pursuant to which Mr. Uzi Sasson, President of the Company, will be paid salary at the rate of $355,000 per year and will be eligible for a performance bonus annually.
Executives on Lookout
We constantly receive inquiries from our network of executives that are passively interested in new opportunities. Although, we do not represent individual candidates, from time to time, we facilitate connections between great leaders and opportunities. If interested, contact us at [email protected] or (650) 937-9150. We currently have the following executives on lookout.
• VP/GM – top tier technologist and entrepreneur in communications, analytics and SaaS
• VP/GM – expert in storage and consumer semiconductor products
• Director/VP Engineering – architect, strategist and executioner in networking technologies
• CEO – with IPO experience in publicly traded communications company and wide range of startups
• Director of Corporate Development – currently a VP with a top investment banking firm
• VP Marketing – experienced in IP, semiconductors and devices, Cornell/UC Berkeley Ph.D
• Director of Engineering – extensive experience in enterprise security, SaaS and cloud
• VP Software Development – experienced in leading large and diversified enterprise engineering teams
• VP of Business Development – in semiconductors with immense network in China, Taiwan and Singapore
• Board Member – SVP sales in public company interested to serve on a board of a private or public company
• VP of Technology – deep expertise and background in wireless, mobile, enterprise, analytics and cloud
• VP of Product Development – in Internet services company, cloud, SaaS
About Simon Bloch and TowerHunter
About Simon Bloch
Simon Bloch leads the Technology practice with focus on C-Level, Vice Presidents and Directors across all functions of an organization and works with public, private, startup and international companies. Simon’s experience ranges from Vice President and General Manager at a billion dollar public company to founder and CEO of a venture-funded Silicon Valley start-up. He has a wide network of contacts across multiple industries and continents. Simon is passionate about connecting great leaders with opportunities and operates on the principals of delivering value, easy to do business with, authenticity, and simply being the best. He can be reached at [email protected] or (650) 937-9150.
About TowerHunter
TowerHunter is a retained executive search firm with offices in Silicon Valley, Phoenix and Boston with hundreds of searches completed over the 10 years of firm’s history. The top reasons firm’s clients value TowerHunter’s services are:
1. Track record – we have an outstanding track record of 96% placement rate with 99% over one year stay
2. Business model – pay per performance fee structure with a stay guarantee
3. Expertise – all partners experienced operational executives and lead all searches
4. Resources – a comprehensive candidate database with research staff to uncover passive candidates
5. Communications – we listen, plan, execute and communicate throughout the search process
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