New Jersey-based Vonage recently announced the appointment of a new CEO. The global leader in cloud communications said Rory Read is the new CEO and latest member of Vonage’s Board of Directors. In a statement, Vonage added, “Effective July 1, 2020, Read will succeed Alan Masarek, who will step down from his roles, and the two will work together to ensure a smooth transition.”
Read has a breadth of experience that could put him in a position for success to lead Vonage into even higher profits and better customer experiences. He has more than three decades of tech experience, having worked with the likes of IBM for over 23-years in various leadership roles, Lenovo, and Dell Technologies. There, Read most recently served as the company’s Chief Operating Executive. Read acted as CEO and President of Virtustream, a technology company held by Dell Technologies, and served as Executive Vice President of Dell Technologies’ Boomi, a SaaS integration platform provider.
In his role as Chief Integration Officer, he led the integration of Dell and EMC Corporation back in September 2016, which resulted in Dell Technologies, the world’s largest privately-held tech firm, and the most comprehensive tech company merger in history. The deal, worth a reported $67 billion.
At Dell, Read managed business aspects such as strategy, planning, operations, and transformation efforts. It seems, based on experience alone, Read’s got what it takes to lead Vonage, but it is his experience with the channel that’s sure to take the spotlight and one can only imagine he will place a lot of focus on growing Vonage’s network of resellers. Read will likely leverage his time spent as President of Dell Worldwide Commercial Sales, where he built and managed Dell’s ‘best-in-class’ sales generator, and delivered the strategy for Dell’s global channel, partner and direct sales efforts.
Under Masarek’s leadership, Vonage transformed from a consumer service provider to a leading business communications provider operating under a unified, flexible integrated platform, with various tools meant for collaboration. During the COVID-19 period, these tools have especially been of help to organizations of all sizes. In a statement, Masarek said the transformation the company’s seen during his time with the company, and during the novel Coronavirus is extensive.
“Transformation of this size is challenging, and we achieved our aim of reinventing Vonage as well as becoming a global leader in business communications during these difficult times”
Vonage has more than 6,200 customers looking to speed up their digital transformation via its programmable communications platform that includes video, voice, chat, messaging, as well as integration into existing products, workflows, and ecosystems. In a recent interview with Brian Gilman, VP of Product and Solutions Marketing, Vonage, he told me, the future of work has changed because of the novel Coronavirus.
This could very well be the justification for a new CEO at such a pivotal point in the history of the cloud movement, and one that comes as no coincidence with its timing. Today, there’s a larger base of remote workers to support, and fresh leadership at Vonage now tapped to drive innovation and customer satisfaction. If this gets done, higher revenue should follow suit.
