NexGen Storage Accelerates Growth Strategy with Management Team Expansion; Hires Former HP Sales Executive David Bangs

Business Wire

Tuesday, September 11th 2012

Bruce Helart, Former Executive Director for Seagate, to Lead Engineering and Operations; IT Industry Veteran, Larry Cormier, Joins Board of Directors

NexGen Storage today announced the expansion of its management team with the appointment of David Bangs as senior vice president of worldwide sales and Bruce Helart as vice president of engineering and operations. The company also named Larry Cormier to its board of directors. Bangs, Helart and Cormier each bring strong track records of success and proven leadership, and will focus on accelerating NexGen’s growth strategy, building its leadership position in solid-state storage and delivering world-class solutions to its customers and partners.

A proven sales leader with deep channel knowledge and commitment, Bangs will be responsible for rapid expansion of NexGen’s worldwide sales force. Bangs brings extensive channel experience and customer-focused success leading sales organizations within the storage technology industry.

Prior to joining NexGen, Bangs was senior vice president of sales at Drobo where he helped lead the NEA- and Greylock-backed company to surpass the 200,000th customer mark, achieve its first 1 petabyte sale and transition to generating more than 50 percent of revenues from the Drobo business line of products. Previously he managed the HP StorageWorks sales organization tasked with penetrating US Emerging Growth Accounts to deliver annual storage and networking products revenues in excess of $900 million. Before his role at HP, Bangs was vice president of worldwide sales at LeftHand Networks, an innovator and leader in the iSCSI SAN market, where he built and led the sales organization from initial shipments to more than 3,000 customer wins prior to the company's acquisition by HP in November 2008. Prior to LeftHand, Bangs held sales leadership roles at Quantum and Control Data.

As vice president of engineering and operations, Helart will be responsible for advancing NexGen’s purpose-built PCIe solid-state storage solutions and accelerating product development and time-to-market. He brings 30 years of progressive management experience in the storage industry to the NexGen leadership team with executive roles in operations, engineering, and supply chain and division management. Prior to NexGen, Helart was executive director of engineering at Seagate Technology where he led multiple corporate initiatives, most recently as the R&D Project Director for the Seagate Samsung HDD merger.

Joining the NexGen board of directors, Cormier brings more than 30 years of leadership experience in the technology industry. He has successfully led marketing initiatives at a number of leading data infrastructure companies, including LeftHand Networks (now HP), CommVault and McDATA, and has extensive experience driving the growth and success of emerging technology companies. Cormier served two terms as a board member for the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) and is currently senior vice president of worldwide marketing for venture-backed Silver Peak Systems, an enterprise network software provider.