Acronis welcomes new UK managing director

Ex-Informatica and CommVault man Rick Powles takes the reins in the UK and Ireland

Disaster recovery vendor Acronis has welcomed a former CommVault boss as its UK and Ireland managing director in the hope that he will help develop its channel and grab new opportunities in cloud and virtualisation.

Rick Powles previously led CommVault's southern Europe business for more than five years before leaving for a six-month stint as head of sales for Informatica, from where he joins Acronis.

In his new role, which he took on at the start of the year, Powles plans to maintain relationships with both customers and channel partners as well as drive further business on the back of what the firm claims is widespread adoption of cloud storage.

Alan Laing, Acronis' vice president for EMEA, said Powles was picked for the role partly for his channel insight and experience.

"Rick has successfully built and led sales teams in both SMB and enterprise organisations, and has demonstrated his ability to achieve significant sales growth," he added.

"The combination of sector, segment and channel knowledge will help to strengthen and grow our business in the UK and Ireland."

Powles said he was excited to join the vendor during what he described as a transitional period for the firm.

At the start of last year, the vendor appointed former Red Hat boss Alex Pinchev as its president and chief executive.