CIQ Welcomes Five Seasoned Veterans to Leadership Team
We're excited to announce a significant expansion of our leadership team, bolstering our mission to create next-generation software infrastructure for enterprises managing data-intensive workloads on the Rocky Linux enterprise Linux distribution. Today, we're introducing five extraordinary individuals to our executive ranks. Their collective passion, vast experience, and unparalleled expertise are exactly what we need to drive our vision forward.
Let's meet our new leaders:
April Mead, now our vice president of product, was previously director of product management. April is a seasoned tech professional with over 20 years of experience delivering user-centric, empathy-driven solutions across diverse industries. With a robust background spanning both startups and consulting, her multifaceted view of technology enables her to transform complex ideas into easy-to-use products.
Tony Sheridan steps into the role of vice president of security and compliance, bringing 30 years of experience from his time at Informatica, CUNA Mutual Group, and other notable public and private sector organizations. Tony will leverage his expertise to ensure security and governance best practices are deeply integrated into both our product stack and business operations.
Patricia Tantow, our new vice president of marketing, is an established marketing executive known for successfully positioning and growing technology brands from the early stages through acquisition or IPO. Patricia has played a significant role in the success of several Silicon Valley companies, including Qualys, Splunk, Expanse (acquired by Palo Alto Networks), and Instaclustr (acquired by NetApp).
Colin VanderSmith, now serving as vice president of product management and technology partnerships, brings over two decades of industry experience from his time at Google, Oracle, and Microsoft. As the head of CIQ's cloud business, Colin is committed to accelerating our growth by building scalable cloud solutions, forging strategic tech partnerships, and simplifying customer deployments through cloud marketplaces.
Richard Zack, our new vice president of professional services, has a distinguished career that began with his venture into Linux and open source software at the age of 14. He built an early internet service provider using Red Hat Linux and later founded Pantek, a pioneering enterprise Linux and open source software services firm. Before joining CIQ, he served as the vice president of global support and professional services at Canonical, the makers of Ubuntu Linux.
Join us in extending a warm welcome to April, Tony, Patricia, Colin, and Richard. Their contributions will no doubt further strengthen our commitment to our customers and the broader open source community.
