On the back of reporting its first Q1 growth quarter since FY2017, Quantum has hired Cisco executive John Hurley to be its Chief Revenue Officer.
Hurley is — was — Cisco’s VP for the global commercial segment and that capped a 13-year stint at the networking business. Before that he spent three years with Dell as an area sales VP for the midwest and, prior to that, was at Cisco — again — as a client director looking after Ford. This is a large enterprise sales guy through and through.
Quantum CEO Jamie Lerner said: “The appointment of John Hurley demonstrates the scope of our ambition as a company. His experience working with the largest global enterprise, commercial, and service provider customers will prove invaluable as we accelerate our growth trajectory.”
Hurley said of the move: “Quantum’s experience in helping clients orchestrate colossal amounts of video and unstructured data sets the company apart from the competition, and I look forward to building on this to generate growth in new markets around the globe.”
Lerner added: “We’re now supporting organisations in cloud services, government, media and entertainment, research, transportation, finance, and beyond to achieve their digital transformation goals. Not only in the markets we’ve traditionally served, but also in emerging areas that are increasingly harnessing the power of video and data to drive business forward.”
Comment
The appointment says that a big league enterprise sales exec at a blue chip company — Cisco — thinks it worthwhile taking a punt on Quantum, a much smaller company with a strong and unfolding recovery story following a troubled past.
It’s a tribute to Lerner that Quantum’s situation has improved so much that he can recruit execs of Hurley’s standing.
