Actian Announces Executive Leadership Changes

PALO ALTO, Calif. – Nov. 1, 2016 – Actian Corporation, a leader in data management and data integration solutions, today announced a series of executive changes and appointments to bolster the organization as it enters a new stage of growth.

The Board of Directors has elected David Murphy, currently board member, as Executive Chairman and appointed Rohit De Souza to the role of Chief Executive Officer and President. Additionally, Gregg Hampton will assume the role of Chief Financial Officer. The appointment of these seasoned executives adds expertise and depth to the business at a time of accelerated market opportunity. Actian continues to help enterprises of all sizes adapt to the new requirements for data management, data integration and cloud computing applications and analytics.

“In his role as board member, David has been instrumental in driving recent changes and leading Actian’s growth in the data management and integration business,” commented Terry Garnett, Managing Partner at Garnett Helfrich Capital. “We are thrilled to appoint David, Rohit and Gregg to their new roles to accelerate the future of the company, and as a result Actian’s growth.”

Murphy brings a wealth of experience to Actian. Most recently, Murphy served as President and Chief Operating Officer of Blue Coat Systems, a leader in enterprise security, which was recently acquired by Symantec. Over the past 25 years, Murphy has held top leadership roles driving market adoption and disruptive growth at Hewlett-Packard (SVP & GM Laser-jet Printing Unit), Mercury Interactive (SVP & CFO), IBM Tivoli (President) and Perot Systems. Prior to these roles, Murphy was a partner at McKinsey & Co.

“I am passionate about the opportunity to step into a more active role as Chairman of Actian. Our customers are increasingly adopting disruptive technologies such as Cloud, IoT, mobile and data analytics to fuel their business transformation. Actian sits at the center of this change. Never before has Actian technology been so vital to a business, and I am very excited about the opportunities in front of us,” commented Murphy.

“We have created a terrific foundation at Actian. I want to acknowledge our committed long term investors Garnett Helfrich Capital and TPG Debt Fund, and in particular Terry Garnett’s unwavering effort. He has been instrumental in creating the future promising potential we have, and for putting into place a new management team to execute on that strategy,” said Ken Goldman, Actian Board Member and CFO at Yahoo!.

The board has also appointed industry veteran Rohit De Souza to Chief Executive Officer and President. De Souza brings nearly 25 years of blue chip, strategic technology and change management experience to the role, having driven results at both large enterprise technology companies and smaller, early stage ventures in a global context. Prior to his appointment at Actian, De Souza held the President and acting CEO position at BeyondCore, where he refocused its go-to-market strategy and drove the acquisition of the company by Salesforce. Prior to BeyondCore, De Souza held multiple leadership positions at HP, including Vice President and General Manager for HP Software – Autonomy / IDOL and prior to that Vice President and Worldwide Manager for its Retail Publishing division, where he was responsible for the business’ exponential growth and established HP as a leader in worldwide retail photo and publishing. De Souza has held leadership roles at Siebel, Oracle and Intel, where in each instance he contributed to the accelerated growth and market success of the firm. De Souza holds dual master’s degrees in engineering from the University of California at Berkeley and an undergraduate degree in engineering from Madras University in India.

“Actian has unique technology assets, a rich history in the data integration, data management and analytics space, and an incredible roster of customers and partners, commented De Souza. “As I look around the organization, I am inspired by the possibilities. The industry is evolving, and I am thrilled to lead Actian’s customers, partners and employees on this journey.”

De Souza takes over the role of CEO from Steve Shine, who has stepped down from the organization. Steven Springsteel will also step down in his capacity of Chief Financial Officer. The Actian board thanks both executives for their contributions during their respective tenures.

Gregg Hampton will step into the role of Chief Financial Officer, having served the same role at Blue Coat Systems since August 2013. Prior to the CFO role, Hampton served as Vice President of Business Operations for Blue Coat. Before joining Blue Coat, he served in various roles at HP, including General Manager of Enterprise Software and Vice President of Finance. Hampton also joined HP through its acquisition of Mercury Interactive, where he served as Vice President of Internal Audit/Global Compliance and Corporate Controller.

About Actian

At Actian, we deliver data as a competitive advantage to thousands of customers worldwide. Through the deployment of remarkable data management and data integration technologies, underpinned by a relentless and trusted service commitment, we ensure that business critical systems can transact and integrate at their very best – on-premises, in the cloud or both. Thousands of companies like Citicorp, Conoco Phillips, Bloomberg, ADP, Intuit and GE Transportation trust Actian to help them solve the toughest data challenges to transform how they run their businesses, today and in the future. For more, visit https://www.actian.com.

Actian is a trademark of Actian Corporation and its subsidiaries. All other trademarks, trade names, service marks, and logos referenced herein belong to their respective companies.

 

Lennard Fischer, SVP of Marketing
lennard.fischer@actian.com
650-587-5529