(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Open source software developer Red Hat (www.redhat.com) announced this week it has named Dirk Peter van Leeuwen as vice president of Red Hat Asia Pacific and General Hugh Shelton as the chairman of the board.
Van Leeuwen will lead the company’s sales, marketing and services efforts in the region.
He joined Red Hat in 2004 and was responsible for establishing Red Hat’s operations in Belgium, The Netherlands and Luxembourg.
In 2006 he assumed responsibility for Central Europe and in 2008 added Eastern Europe.
In Europe Van Leeuwen was responsible for the general management of 47 countries with a primary focus on sales management.
Under the sales leadership of Van Leeuwen, Red Hat saw its European customer base grow.
Most recently, he served as VP of sales in APAC and Japan and has been instrumental in new business development and growing the business in this region over the last year.
Van Leeuwen will report to Alex Pinchev, executive vice president and president of global sales, services and field marketing.
“In Europe DP’s focus was to build and grow Red Hat’s business in established and emerging markets and to establish Red Hat as the open source operating system and middleware platform provider of choice in the enterprise and SMB markets,” says Pinchev. “There is great opportunity in the APAC region, and Red Hat is ready with compelling solutions, such as virtualization and cloud computing, to serve the needs of this market. We believe that DP is a leader with the right balance of business acumen, technical knowledge and entrepreneurial spirit to help guide APAC to the next level.”
Van Leeuwen has worked in the IT industry for over 20 years, gaining a deep understanding of the global enterprise and channel markets within the software industry.
Prior to working for Red Hat, he was European director for PlanetWeb and director of Northern Europe for SCO where he built up the sales arm of the business in Benelux and the Nordic region.
General Hugh Shelton is a former chairman of the US military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff.
He has been on the company’s board since 2003, and will succeed former chief executive Matthew Szulik.
Prior to being made Joint Chiefs chairman in 1997, Shelton served in the Special Forces in Vietnam and commanded the 82nd Airborne Division and the 18th Airborne Corps at Fort Bragg. He retired from the Army in 2001.
