Puppet Appoints Chief Product Officer and VP of Customer Success

Former HPE, EMC Leaders Join to Accelerate Product Innovation, Customer Expansion to Cloud and to Drive Outstanding Customer Experiences; New Vice President of Legal Affairs and Vice President of Americas Named

| Source: Puppet Puppet

PORTLAND, OR--(Marketwired - Feb 7, 2017) - Puppet, the standard for automating the delivery and operation of the software that powers everything around us, today announced the appointment of Omri Gazitt as chief product officer and Sandra Hamilton as vice president of customer success. Omri comes to Puppet from Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), where he was vice president and general manager of its cloud native platform business unit. As chief product officer at Puppet, Omri will oversee engineering, product management, next-generation technology and evangelism. Sandra joins from EMC, where she served as vice president of global services. She was instrumental in establishing the company's consulting business and in helping it grow to more than $250 million in worldwide revenue. As vice president of customer success, Sandra will expand the global services practice, advance the customer vision and elevate customer relationships.

"To sustain incredible innovations and outstanding customer experiences, we hire truly exceptional people to fill every position," said Sanjay Mirchandani, CEO of Puppet. "Software is the heart of every business and Puppet's vision is to provide cutting-edge products and services that enable global organizations to automate software delivery, support DevOps and drive digital transformation. Omri and Sandra will help accelerate this vision and our products and services roadmap."

Omri Gazitt
Omri has more than 25 years of experience in roles spanning engineering, product and business management. Most recently, he was the vice president and general manager for the HPE Cloud Native Platform business unit, where he was responsible for all aspects of the business. Omri joined HPE as the vice president of engineering for the Helion Development Platform product, which he defined and launched. He was then promoted to vice president of products, where he led cloud strategy, product management, UX and security functions for the entire Helion portfolio, including HPE's private, managed and public cloud solutions. Additionally, he oversaw HPE's involvement in the OpenStack and Cloud Foundry open source projects and served as board director of the Cloud Foundry Foundation in 2016.

"We're in the midst of a sea change as enterprises deploy new workloads into public clouds such as AWS, Azure and the Google Cloud Platform," said Gazitt. "It's a great honor to be joining Puppet, an iconic company in our industry which has played an essential role in helping customers manage through the complexity of running ever-larger and more heterogeneous IT footprints. As our customers adopt DevOps practices and increase their agility, Puppet has an excellent opportunity to be their trusted partner on that journey."

Sandra Hamilton
Sandra brings more than 25 years of experience to Puppet. She has a record of leading global organizations through successful business transformations in a range of industries, including finance, deal management, consulting and technology. In her previous role as vice president of global services at EMC, Sandra developed and supported EMC Global Services' go-to-market strategy for its broad portfolio of professional services.

"I'm very passionate about the total customer experience," explains Hamilton. "My entire career has been about the customer, in one way or another. Even in the age of technology, I recognize the value of personally engaging with them. At Puppet, I'm looking forward to elevating the customer connection even further."

Promotions
Puppet also today announced that Katie Abbott has been promoted to vice president of legal affairs and Terry Wrightson to vice president of Americas.

Katie Abbott
Katie has been with the company since 2014. In her new role, she will assume greater responsibility for legal matters, including guidance in the dynamic landscape of licensing, data privacy and open source software as Puppet continues its global expansion.

Terry Wrightson
Terry joined Puppet in 2015 after a lengthy career in high-technology sales, including roles with Quest Software, EMC, VMware and HP. In his time with Puppet, Terry has led the Western Field & Enterprise team and successfully executed business objectives. In Terry's new role as vice president of Americas, he will be responsible for managing all aspects of the Puppet Enterprise business.

New hires and promotions are taking place during a period of continued growth:

  • More than 35,000 companies around the world, including 75 percent of the Fortune 100, now use Puppet.
  • Strong growth in the U.S. accounted for 78 percent of bookings in Q4.
  • Strong growth in EMEA accounted for 18 percent of bookings in Q4.
  • More than 500 people work for Puppet today.

Additional resources

About Puppet
Puppet is driving the movement to a world of unconstrained software change. Its revolutionary platform is the industry standard for automating the delivery and operation of the software that powers everything around us. More than 35,000 companies -- including more than 75 percent of the Fortune 100 -- use Puppet's open source and commercial solutions to adopt DevOps practices, achieve situational awareness and drive software change with confidence. Headquartered in Portland, Oregon, Puppet is a privately held company with more than 500 employees around the world. Learn more at puppet.com.

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