Skarda is joining The Planet after a 10-year tenure at Level 3 Communications.
(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — IT hosting provider The Planet (www.theplanet.com) has appointed Duke S. Skarda vice president of information technology and software development, making him responsible for the company’s entire span of IT activities, including core IT operations, and software development and implementation of customer-facing solutions.
According to The Planet’s Monday announcement, Skarda will be reporting to The Planet chairman and chief executive officer Douglas J. Erwin and will be the resident senior executive in the company’s Dallas offices.
“Duke Skarda brings extensive enterprise-level experience in the telecommunications industry, with deep technology strategy and architecture knowledge,” Erwin said in a statement. “His expertise in dealing with customer-facing technologies, including portals, order-entry services, financial systems and business intelligence, provides The Planet with new capabilities as we expand products and services to grow our global footprint.”
Skarda’s appointment follows a decade working for fiber-optic services provider Level 3 Communications (www.level3.com), where he held a series of positions including senior vice president for its content markets group, where he led engineering and IT development for its content distribution network platform and IT support systems.
Previously, Skarda was senior vice president for IT architecture and application development, where he led a broad range of programs, including business process management, and order-entry and service assurance development. He also led the development of a long-range systems roadmap, systems merger and acquisition planning, and the development of the company’s enterprise architecture team.
