NetApp announces global sales restructure
Global restructure includes EMEA boss Alex Wallner moving to newly created role as SVP of NetApp’s international business
NetApp has announced a major sales restructure across its global operations which will impact both its channel and direct go-to-market strategy.
The vendor today announced several changes to its global sales organisation. Alex Wallner, NetApp's EMEA boss and SVP of worldwide enterprise and commercial field operations, will take on a newly created role as SVP of the vendor's entire international business.
The new role will include leading and executing against all go-to-market activities in EMEA, APAC and Latin America.
Meanwhile, NetApp's SVP of globals, verticals and pathways, Rick Scurfield, has been appointed to another newly created role as NetApp's chief commercial officer. Scurfuled will be responsible for building a new go-to-market strategy including both direct and channel sales.
Scurfield will also look to transform NetApp's digital and virtual sales teams and its sales operations to be more effective for its own sales force and its partners.
Lastly, Adobe exec Max Long has joined NetApp to lead its North American business. Formerly chief customer officer at Adobe, Long claims to have more than 30 years of experience in building sales teams and leading business transformations.
All of the new changes will come into effect on 1 May 2021.
The appointments come less than a year after NetApp appointed former Microsoft exec César Cernuda as its president.
Cernuda claims the changes will help drive more consistency and simplicity across its global sales organisation and enable it to more aggressively target key segments and reach new partners and customers.
"With today's relentless pace of change, speed is the new scale. And that's what organizations are demanding as they try to put their data to work to keep innovating and stay ahead of the digital curve," said Cernuda.
"We are implementing these changes to better serve their needs. We will soon deliver a personalized, data-driven engagement model that allows our current and future customers to move at warp speed and aligns with the new way they want to engage with their solution partners."
NetApp has been transforming itself into a cloud and software business over recent years. The firm announced plans to cut 5.5 per cent if its 10,800 workforce in August last year as it begun to "realign" the business towards new opportunities.
The cuts came four months after NetApp acquired virtual desktop vendor CloudJumper to boost its virtualisation capabilities.