Commvault Taps Former Veritas Exec as VP for Americas Channels

Veteran channel exec Rick Fairweather has jumped from Veritas to rival Commvault, taking over as VP of channels for the Americas region of the enterprise backup and data protection software provider.

Fairweather, a longtime Cisco channel exec who joined Veritas three years ago after Symantec spun off the data-protection business it had acquired a decade earlier, now reports to Commvault’s worldwide channel chief, Scott Strubel.

Commvault’s Rick Fairweather

It wasn’t immediately clear who will replace Fairweather as VP of the Americas at Veritas, but the company said Wednesday that it had promoted Rita Loncar to channel chief for Canada. Veritas global channel chief Barbara Spicek is making some other appointments in the channel organization, a spokeswoman said.

Spicek, who took over as VP of global channels and alliances at Veritas last year, began redesigning the company’s Partner Force program in April. Veritas is in the process of expanding its global leadership team. Asked about plans to replace Fairweather, the spokeswoman said the company plants to appoint a new vice president for the channel in the Americas as part of its channel strategy.

In addition to tapping Fairweather, Commvault also named Mark Fong as its VP of Asia Pacific channel and alliances. Fong held a similar role at Equinix. The two latest additions to Commvault’s channel ranks follow a string of new execs who have joined the company’s partner organization this year.

In January, Commvault promoted Owen Taraniuk to lead the company’s focus on expanding its global indirect sales strategy. Strubel, a former NetApp channel exec, joined Commvault in May as the new VP of worldwide channels, taking over for Ralph Nimergood,

Another recent addition to Commvault’s partner organization, Wenceslao Lada, joined the company last month leading global alliances. Lada replaced Andy Vandeveld, the former Veeam alliances exec who served a brief stint at Commvault.

Commvault’s channel executives were in meetings today and unavailable for comment, but Channel Futures sat down with Taraniuk at this month’s Commvault Go customer and partner conference in Nashville, Tennessee. Taraniuk, who in January said Commvault is “doubling down” on partner-led sales, said the streamlining and simplification of its Partner Advantage program in July is already showing results.

“We’ve seen a very significant growth in the number of partner deals that we’re doing, and we are seeing very significant growth in the revenue pipeline,” Taraniuk said. “It has been a huge transition of people learning new skills, taking new roles at a company taking new approaches. There’s been an awful lot of alignment internally of our systems and process as we introduce this new program.”

Since joining Commvault as its global channel chief, Strubel said the company has already made it easier for partners to engage with it by reducing its products from 20 SKUs to four. A new partner portal launched in July is a key enabler in the streamlining of the Partner Advantage program, Strubel said during a separate interview at Commvault Go. “We still have a lot of work to do, but we’ve made a lot of progress in five months,” he said.