Oracle appoints former VMWare channel lead


Daniel Todd

21 Jan, 2020

US tech firm Oracle has appointed former VMWare channel chief Ross Brown as vice president of its Cloud GTM division.

Despite the recent hire, Oracle has so far declined to reveal specific details surrounding the move and whether he will be directly involved with Oracle Cloud’s channel.

However, Brown’s LinkedIn profile has revealed his new position as Oracle’s Cloud chief, where he will be responsible for leading its go-to-market operations. According to the brief entry on his page, he will lead the segment from Seattle, Washington, where the firm has recently expanded its cloud infrastructure workforce.

Brown joins the business following a 20-month sabbatical. Prior to that, he held the position of senior vice president of VMWare’s WW Partners and Alliances division, where he was responsible for helping partners integrate the company’s technology into their services and solutions.

After joining the firm in August 2015, Brown was also responsible for rebuilding VMWare’s Development Fund Program, as well as developing and gaining executive and partner endorsements.

According to his LinkedIn page, his team oversaw a 30 percent increase in weekly partner deal creation rates, an increase in average deal size and a hike in partner certification investments.

Previously, he also spent four years in channel leadership at Microsoft, as well as a senior leadership stint at Citrix earlier in his career.

The appointment follows Oracle’s recent efforts to further drive adoption of its cloud infrastructure service around the world. Back in October, the firm revealed plans to expand its cloud division by up to 2,000 new employees, covering roles in cloud operations, software development, business operations and more.

“Our aggressive hiring and growth plans are mapped to meet the needs of our customers, providing them reliability, high performance, and robust security as they continue to move to the cloud,” Don Johnson, executive vice president at Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, said in a statement at the time.