NetApp CMO Parrish Exits Ahead of Insight Event

NetApp (NTAP) chief marketing officer (CMO) Julie Parrish has abruptly left the company less than three weeks ahead of its Insight conference in Las Vegas Oct 12 – 15, according to the U.K.’s Register and other reports.

In a statement, NetApp confirmed Parrish’s departure: “Based on a mutual decision between NetApp and Julie Parrish, she will step out of the CMO role effective immediately and will be leaving NetApp. The company has started a search for a new CMO. Marketing is a critical part of NetApp’s go-to-market strategy … We want to thank Julie, who has held significant leadership roles during her tenure at the company, both in Channel Sales and also in Global Marketing.”

Parrish had been CMO since November, 2012, moving up from Worldwide Partner Sales senior vice president. She joined NetApp in October, 2008 from security provider Symantec (SYMC), where she was a high profile channel executive for six years. Prior to her stint at Symantec, Parrish served as a Veritas vice president.

Brian Bakstran, NetApp’s current Americas Field Marketing vice president, will take on Parrish’s role in an interim capacity.

Parrish follows a growing list of NetApp executives out the door, headed by former chief executive Tom Georgens’ departure in June. Georgens was replaced by George Kurian, who was elevated from his former post as product operations vice president.

The exiting executives list also includes Regina Kunkle, former NetApp North America channel sales vice president who departed in July for SAP, former chief technology officer Jay Kidd, who retired, and Brian Pawlowski, an ex-senior vice president who jumped to flash storage provider Pure Storage.

It’s not clear what kind of impact Parrish’s leaving will have on the storage provider’s channel partners. To the extent that she was responsible for building brand awareness for NetApp’s products, her exit may have a measurable effect.

Incoming NetApp chief technology officer Mark Bregman also hails from Symantec and Veritas and most recently from machine-learning start-up SkywriterRX.