Six Business Executives Join Polycom Leadership Team

By Nathesh, TMCnet Contributor

Polycom, a dealer in unified communications, has added six seasoned business executives to its leadership team. The company has also combined its video, telepresence, and voice development units into a single, aligned research and development organization to tap the tremendous potential of the high-growth UC market.

Polycom has formed three lines of business including enterprise and government/public sector, service provider, and small-to-medium business – focused on meeting the needs of customers in each of these fast-growing technology sectors.

The new seasoned executives have participated in leading the company through a period of expected significant growth.

Joe Burton, senior vice president and chief strategy and technology officer of GM Enterprise and Service Provider, leads Polycom's long-term strategic agenda and next-generation focus areas. Before Polycom, Burton served as Cisco’s (News - Alert) chief technology officer for unified communication, encompassing video technologies, WebEx collaboration, call management, and social computing.

Sudhakar Ramakrishna will join Polycom as senior vice president, general manager of products and chief development officer on Oct. 11. Ramakrishna has been instrumental in scaling the 4G (WiMAX and LTE) business and leading large multi-function teams of more than 2,300 employees and businesses across the globe.

Sue Hayden, executive vice president and general manager of the small- to medium-sized business unit, is responsible for directing Polycom's go-to-market and line-of-business strategy. She is well known for building and expanding large-scale global operations in technology companies.

Alan Rudolph, senior vice president at Polycom Global Services, is responsible for leading Polycom's customer-centric services and support organization worldwide. He has a strong background in professional services and a proven track record of scaling large service and support organizations for multiplying business growth at such companies as Oracle and IBM (News - Alert).

Gary Rider, president at Polycom EMEA, leads Polycom's EMEA management team in developing and executing strategies and plans to drive aggressive revenue and market-share growth in the theater. Rider brings to Polycom a wealth of business management and sales experience, a deep appreciation of how to succeed in a geographically complex and culturally diverse theatre, and the ability to lead cross-functional teams. He joined Polycom following a successful seven-year career at NCR, where he led the transformation of NCR’s EMEA theatre to a highly profitable, $1.75 billion success story—and the largest theatre at NCR. Prior to NCR, he held several senior roles with StorageTek, HP and Digital Equipment.

Ashley Goldsmith, senior vice president of human resources, leads Polycom’s global human resources team. She brings more than 16 years in human resources leadership experience to Polycom. She joined Polycom from F. Hoffmann-La Roche, where she was senior vice president of human resources, corporate communications, and environmental health and safety for Roche's Tissue Diagnostics Division.