SolarWinds announced several key executive leadership additions. Specifically, Darren Beck has been appointed CMO; Chris Benwell, SVP, North American commercial sales; and David Cronk, SVP, international sales.
“The addition of these phenomenal, well-respected business, sales, and technology leaders to our executive team is an indication of our commitment to the IT professional—whether an army of one managing a small environment, a member of a team managing an enterprise infrastructure, or part of an MSP responsible for multiple customers,” said Kevin Thompson, CEO, SolarWinds. “This commitment includes providing the powerful yet unexpectedly simple to use products SolarWinds is known for to help solve the broadest range of IT management challenges of any vendor. We look forward to these individuals’ leadership in their areas of expertise.”
Darren Beck, CMO: Beck joins SolarWinds from Guaranteed Rate, where he also served as CMO. In his nearly 20-year career, he has built a track record of defining strategic vision and executing cross-functional initiatives to realize aggressive goals. He has held a number of senior leadership positions, managing all aspects of marketing and demand generation, including advertising, digital marketing, web development, and public relations for companies including LendingTree, Capital One, and Wal-Mart.
Chris Benwell, SVP, North American Commercial Sales: Benwell, a customer- and employee-focused leader with more than 20 years’ experience in revenue-driving senior leadership roles at Pearson Education and Hewlett-Packard (HP), brings a strong track record of leading software sales growth and transforming teams to SolarWinds.
David Cronk, SVP, International Sales: Cronk also brings 20 years of experience as a sales leader to SolarWinds’ leadership team. Cronk most recently served as SVP of North American and channel sales at Pearson Education. Prior to that, he was responsible for building an inside sales organization for HP as VP and GM of the company’s Asia-Pacific Japan Enterprise Group.
Additional new hires in recent months:
Joseph Kim, SVP and Global CTO: Kim oversees the overall technology vision and strategy for the SolarWinds’ IT, cloud, and MSP product portfolios. Before joining the company, Kim was the VP and GM of HP Enterprise’s Transform Business Unit — responsible for product strategy, management, engineering, and execution of five new, innovative products in the IT Operations Management (ITOM) space. He was also the CTO for HP Software’s Application Delivery Management and ITOM businesses, leading the development of transformational technologies and forward-thinking ideas.
John Pagliuca, SVP, SolarWinds MSP: Pagliuca joined SolarWinds with the acquisition of LOGICnow, where he served as CFO. He now leads the SolarWinds MSP business, overseeing sales, customer retention and success, support, marketing, financial planning and analysis, and business applications. Prior to LOGICnow, Pagliuca was VP of Finance and Operations for GFI Software.
Christoph Pfister, EVP, Products: Pfister leads strategy, product management, and product marketing to drive growth and expansion for SolarWinds’ portfolio of IT management products. He brings a wealth of relevant experience building world-class software products, having served in a variety of executive positions at HP Enterprise, most recently as the VP and GM of a more than $1 billion software division. Prior to HP, he was a founding partner of a database consulting and tools company in France, and worked at Oracle.
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