Polycom Strengthens Asia Pacific Leadership Team

Friday, 27 May 2011 06:08

Polycom Appoints Key Leaders in Sales and Marketing to Support Growth Strategy in Unified Communications

Polycom, Inc. (Nasdaq: PLCM), a global leader in unified communications (UC), has announced the appointment of Michael Chetner to the role of vice president, Asia Pacific. Chetner, who was previously managing director, Australia and New Zealand, is now responsible for driving the continued growth of Asia Pacific, which includes all countries in the region except China.

Chetner's new role is one of several promotions to Polycom's executive staff, further strengthening the company's sales and marketing leadership and execution.  The company expects these changes to drive its expansion and growth strategies in key markets and its plans to deliver on Polycom's UC Everywhere SM vision.

Having been with the company for over eight years, Chetner brings a wealth of industry expertise and proven track record to his new role. During his tenure as managing director for Polycom's Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) business, Chetner generated consistent revenue growth; increased profitability; built a series of key business, government and industry partnerships; and increased market share throughout both countries to raise its profile as a leading best practice market for Polycom globally.

'I look forward to strengthening Polycom's market leadership position in Asia Pacific, ensuring we are well positioned to take advantage of the opportunities in this fast growing market. With my past experience, I intend to share and leverage the best practice initiatives, which have been instrumental in growing Polycom locally to date,' explained Chetner.

'With such a strong regional team in place, my primary objective will be to ensure our local teams are aligned with the company's broader growth strategy, along with a focus on customer engagement and business development. I also plan to continue to engage with key stakeholders involved in Australia's National Broadband Network (NBN) initiative where we see huge potential to deliver next-generation communications applications and services in areas such as e-health and education,' said Chetner.

Sales Leadership Expands Based on APAC Success

Chetner will report to Hansjoerg Wagner who has just been appointed to the position of senior vice president of Global Field Operations. This promotion expands Wagner's role to include global service sales, global sales processes, and Polycom's global cloud initiative.  He will also remain the president of the Asia Pacific region.  In addition to Michael Chetner, Wagner's expanded leadership team will also include:

• Gary Testa joins Polycom as vice president of the Global Cloud and Service Provider Solutions Group. Testa will be responsible for driving global sales and business development for the full range of Polycom's service provider partners and managed service customers, and will lead Polycom's initiatives for cloud-based and mobility-based UC solution adoption.

• Steven Li remains as vice president of China. Li has driven China revenues to a record 11% of consolidated revenues in Q1 2011 and, over the past several years, has catapulted Polycom's position in China to overall market leader.

• Paul Newell is promoted to vice president of Asia Pacific Field Operations.  Building on Newell's success with APAC's Unified Communications strategy, he will now be responsible for driving the region's strategic initiatives, partner relations to include UC alliances, services providers and systems integrators, and business operations.

Marketing Leadership and Brand Transformation

In June, Kate Hutchison will join Polycom as the company's new chief marketing officer and executive vice president. Hutchison brings nearly 20 years of executive marketing leadership and brand transformation experience at several of the world's most successful enterprise software companies, including VMware, Citrix Systems and BEA. Reporting to Polycom President and CEO Andy Miller, Hutchison will lead product marketing, corporate marketing, industry marketing and global field marketing. Hutchison's background in software, virtualisation, and emerging technologies are expected to accelerate the evolution of Polycom's brand as it transforms into the software powerhouse that's enabling the UC Everywhere vision.

Polycom is making these announcements on the heels of another record quarter, in which the company generated significant revenue growth across all geographies. These executive appointments also build on Polycom's hiring of several world-class executives in 2010 and earlier in 2011 - all designed to position the company for optimal growth and performance in the dynamic UC market.

'Promoting and recruiting these proven leaders bolsters our depth and breadth of talent as we drive Polycom to the $2 billion revenue mark and beyond,' said Polycom President and CEO Andy Miller. 'We believe Polycom is uniquely positioned to capitalise on the rapid adoption of visual communications, to deliver cloud and mobility-based UC solutions, and to drive the network effect of video collaboration."