2014-2015 SNIA Board and Technical Council Election - Candidate Profiles and Ballot

Attention SNIA Voting Member Company Representatives -

Below, please find the candidate information and a Ballot for the 2014-2015 SNIA Board of Directors and Technical Council (TC) Elections. It is important that we have your vote and endorsement of these Candidates as they will be playing a key role in the leadership of this organization and the storage networking industry.

For the Board of Directors, 13 Voting Directors (10 Elected Seats) — 5 of the Directors in elected seats (Wayne Adams - EMC, David Dale - NetApp, Ron Emerick - Oracle, David Gimpl - IBM, and Jim Pappas - Intel) will remain on the Board to complete another year of their terms. This leaves 5 seats (with 5 nominated Candidates) open for election to 2–year terms by SNIA Voting Member Company Representatives, along with up to 3 seats open for appointment by the new Board (after it takes office in October).

For the Technical Council, 9 Voting Members (7 Elected Seats) — 2 of the existing Technical Council (TC) members in elected seats (Bill Martin - Samsung Electronics and Carlos Pratt - IBM) will remain on the TC to complete the second year of their terms. This leaves 5 seats (with 6 nominated Candidates) open for election to a 2–year term by SNIA Voting Member Company Representatives and 2 seats open for appointment by the new Board as recommended by the TC (after it takes office in October).

Find information on each of the Board of Director and Technical Council candidates below.

To vote (confidentially), complete and e-mail this - Skip Jones - Individual???
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J Michael Metz - Cisco Systems
Molly Rector - DataDirect Networks
Allan Zmyslowski - Fujitsu AmericaTechnical Council Candidates

Candidates for Board of Directors

J Michael Metz

Voting Member Company: Cisco Systems
Title: Sr. Product Manager
Length of Employment with Current Company: 4
Years of Storage Industry / IT Community Experience: 15
Education: BA, MA, Ph.D
 

Previous SNIA Service (Technical Working Groups, Forums, Initiatives, Committees, Board, TC, Task Forces, Projects)

One year as an “at large” member of the Board of Directors. Have presented at numerous SNIA events, including SPDECon, SDC, and SNW, as both a peer-reviewed speaker and invited panelist. Scheduled to represent SNIA at the Open Data Center Alliance “Software Defined Networks” panel. Reviewer of SNIA blogs and SNIA presentations for 3rd-Party venues (e.g., BrightTalk). Regular contributor to SNIA ESF group (blogs, presentations, etc.)

Employment History

Worked as an Entrepreneur in the IT industry before joining Apple (UK), and then returned to the United States to work for QLogic before arriving at Cisco.

Industry Achievement Awards

Aside from speaking awards for individual conference events, no major awards.

Your Motivation for Seeking This Seat

Active member of the BoD, active participant in SNIA events for many years, and seek to contribute to broadening the larger understanding and promotion of proper storage practices, standards, and regulations across the broader concerns.

Other Associations That You Are Currently Active With and In What Capacity

• Board Member, Fibre Channel Industry Association
• Contributor, Ethernet Alliance (Storage)

Potential Areas of Interest (Marketing, Work Groups, Standards, Interoperability, End User Council, Other)

Block Storage, Software-Defined Storage, Education, Object-Based Storage, Flash innovations, Storage Networking, OpenStack Cinder/Swift/(Manilla).

Anything Else the SNIA Should Be Aware Of

An excellent swing dancer.

Biography

J Metz is a Sr. Product Manager for Cisco, focusing on Storage strategy and products for the Data Center Group. The primary focus of his work is involved in the development of converged networking products and technology in the Data Center. He has particular interest in the broad range of possibilities for storage as Data Center technologies continue to improve and push the boundaries of what’s possible. J is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Fibre Channel Industry Association (FCIA),

J received his PhD in Mass Communication Technology from the University of Georgia and has worked as a university professor, entrepreneur, systems engineer and solutions architect before arriving at Cisco.

Molly Rector

Voting Member Company: DataDirect Networks (DDN)
Title: Chief Marketing Officer, Product Management & WW Marketing
Length of Employment with Current Company:7 months
Years of Storage Industry / IT Community Experience: 10+ Years
Education: Bachelor of Science Degree – Major – Biology; Minor  - Chemistry
 

Previous SNIA Service (Technical Working Groups, Forums, Initiatives, Committees, Board, TC, Task Forces, Projects)

I have been on the SNIA Board for approximately 2.5 years.  Serving as the vice-chair for the most recent year.  I have also served in the following areas:

• Vice-Chair of the ABDC group along with Gilda Foss
• Member of the SNIA4 portion of the SNW8
• Panel member on joint ABDC and DPCO Webinar
• Miscellaneous support efforts in “Ask the Expert” sessions, topic tables, etc. at events

My additional historic experience with SNIA has been in the areas below:

• Attended conference as end user when worked with a Storage Service Provider (SSP)
• Sponsor as a vendor in the exhibit portion of SNW Spring/Fall several times over multiple years
• Participation as a content provider for Archive Hands-on Lab
• Speaker on backup, archive and tape at multiple SNW shows

Attended SNIA summer session related to Active Archive when the alliance was originally launched

Employment History
 

DataDirect Networks,    Chief Marketing Officer                                                                January 2014 – Present

Responsible for Worldwide Marketing & Product Management Teams

• Manage product management, product vision and go-to-market for high performance storage, memory and Cloud product manufacturer
• Member of Executive Management Team reporting directly to CEO
• Responsible for all corporate Marketing functions as well as both inbound and outbound Product Management
• Lead worldwide business and channel partner channel for focus areas in US, CAN, LA, EMEA and AP

Active Archive Alliance                                                                                                                 April 2010 – March 2014

Founder and Chairman of the Board (hold this board position concurrently with role at Spectra Logic)

• Created vision for new industry based on current market demands.  
• Came up with definitions and terms for new industry, driving awareness and acceptance through standards organizations, with major industry analysts and through press awareness.
• Founded non-profit organization through Spectra Logic and recruited appropriate industry partners with shared vision to found the Active Archive Alliance.
• Success measured by:
  • Active Archive solutions now accounting for nearly 50% of Spectra Logic’s new opportunity pipeline
  • New corporate members consistently applying for and approved for membership
  • First major analyst report issued by Aberdeen July 1, 2011 tracking the Active Archive market

Spectra Logic, Corp.        Chief Marketing Officer                                                                July 2004 – January 2014

Responsible for Worldwide Marketing & Product Management Teams

• Manage very high performance, data driven Marketing organization within a high growth storage manufacturer
• Member of Spectra Logic Executive Management Team reporting directly to CEO
• Responsible for all corporate Marketing functions as well as both inbound and outbound Product Management
• Accountable for creating, managing and measuring results for $4.3M annual operational budget for Marketing department
• Lead strategic vision and manage team of currently 28 marketing team members plus external PR agencies in the US and Europe
• Responsible for all lead generation initiatives including: creating new market opportunities to sell current products into; driving new sales opportunities through direct and indirect marketing; and, identifying new products that would have accessible markets to our business as growth opportunities.  Marketing driven lead generation activities must measurably ensure a minimum of 40%+ pipeline growth and 25%+ annual revenue growth YoY
• Lead worldwide business and channel partner channel for focus areas in US, CAN, LA, EMEA and AP

Primary Responsibilities

• Strategic Vision: Create, define and execute upon visionary leadership on markets, solutions and products
  • Successfully migrated Spectra Logic’s outbound sales effort from being a point technology sale to part of a larger solution
  • Moved Spectra solution positioning from end point storage for backup to part of high performance compute and broadcast archive solutions.  This included new outbound corporate positioning, new product positioning, new industry partnerships and new branding and lead generation sources.
  • Created the Active Archive message to offer a new solution for Spectra tape to be positioned and sold into
• Management: Lead the following departments and functional areas
  • Marketing Communications (1 Manager + 7 individual contributors)
  • Channel Marketing (1 Director + 4 individual contributors)
  • Product Marketing  (2 individual contributors)
  • Press and Analyst Relations (1 individual contributor + 2 external agencies)
  • Product Management (1 Director + 3 individual contributors)
  • Strategic Alliances (1-2 individual contributors)
  • Sales Training (1 individual contributor)
  • RFP/RFI Responses (1-2 individual contributors)
• PR/AR Spokesperson: Primary corporate spokesperson to press and analysts for product, financial and corporate communications worldwide.  Maintain strong personal relationships with all major IT, Storage, HPC and Broadcast industry analysts and press
• Public Speaking:  Primary executive presenter as subject matter expert on solution landscape product offerings at events and conferences
• External public engagement:  Frequently recruited as honorary spokesperson at thought leadership events in Mass Storage and Information Explosion.  Also fill corporate sponsored speaking engagement in the industry and with end users.
• Financial Management:
  • Create budget and market development plan to meet business needs
  • Maintain operational expenditures at or below budget
  • Perform quarterly product margin and MSRP analysis ensuring profitability is tracking to business goals and looking for opportunities to increase margin
• End User Interaction:  Responsible for maintaining executive relationship with subset of key target accounts to grow relationships and ensure needs are being met holistically by product, sales, service and future roadmap. 
• Expand Channel Sales Revenue:
  • Ensure current channel partners are armed with appropriate tools and training to ensure success
  • Measure and track revenue growth by individual channel sales representative, by channel partner company and by vertical market to ensure marketing initiatives are producing measurable results
  • Selectively recruit new channel partners in geographic areas or vertical markets that do not have sufficient coverage

Managed Storage International / Incentra Solutions                     August 2001–July 2004

Oracle DBA;  Engineering Manager

• Managed Storage International was a fully funded startup from StorageTek
  • Initially hired as technical writer and Oracle DBA for GridWorks service and customer management portal
  • Also did some DBA work for DIVArchive (now owned by Front Porch Digital)
• Managed two engineering teams: systems integration and software engineering
  • Systems engineering: architected, tested, configured and provided 3rd level support for primary storage and backup systems at major Fortune500 accounts and in shared managed storage environments.  We were offering “cloud” storage and services 10 years ago but the “hot” marketing term was SSP.
  • Software engineering: managed team of developers that architected and wrote customer and service SLA management software.
• Member of technical due diligence team for M&A activities as we acquired three other SSPs during my time at MSI

IBM                                                                                                                                        August 1999–July 2001

Technical Writer

Industry Achievement Awards

From a certification and technical background, I currently hold certifications as:

• CommVault Certified System Administrator
• Veritas Certified Data Protection Administrator
• Oracle Certified Enterprise DBA

From an industry recognition and personal achievement perspective, I have been recognized as:

• 2010 Channel Chief by Everything Channel’s CRN
• 2011 Boulder County Business Report’s 40 Under 40
• Co-Author of Active Archive for Dummies book

Presenter at conferences approximately 6-8 times each year in Cloud, Storage and Big Data

Your Motivation for Seeking This Seat

I am very passionate about working within the storage industry to help keep developers and users up to speed on the changes needed to accommodate the constant data growth that is occurring nearly worldwide.  I feel it is very important for businesses to have information and education available to keep up with the rapid technology changes as well as how to integrate the evolving open source world with traditional storage sytems.  SNIA is in a great position to bring vendors together to align on changes and deliver a strong, consistent message to the users.  I believe collaboration between vendors and technology providers is critical in such a dynamic environment and am enthusiastic to share in the efforts, time and experience that needs to come together.

Potential Areas of Interest (Marketing, Work Groups, Standards, Interoperability, End User Council, Other)

• Archive
• Big Data
• Backup
• Unstructured data, NAS
• SSD
• Cloud
• Open Source

Biography

With 15 years of experience working in the HPC, Media and Entertainment, and Enterprise IT industries running global marketing programs, Molly Rector serves as DDN’s Chief Marketing Officer responsible for product management and worldwide marketing. Rector’s role includes providing customer and market input into the company’s product roadmap, raising the Corporate brand visibility outside traditional markets, expanding the partner ecosystem and driving the end-to-end customer experience from definition to delivery. Rector is a founding member and currently serves as Chairman of the Board for the Active Archive Alliance. She is also the Storage Networking Industry Association’s (SNIA) Vice Chairman of the Board and the Analytics and Big Data committee Vice Chairman. Prior to joining DDN, Rector was responsible for product management and worldwide marketing as CMO at Spectra Logic. During her tenure at Spectra Logic, the company grew revenues consistently by double digits year-over-year, while also maintaining profitability. Rector holds certifications as CommVault Certified System Administrator; Veritas Certified Data Protection Administrator; and Oracle Certified Enterprise DBA: Backup and Recovery. She earned a Bachelor’s of Science degree in biology and chemistry.