Six Hires at Panzura

Panzura LLC announced 6 additions to its leadership team.

Joining the company are Judy Kopa, James Seay, Joseph Hopkins, Thomas Arlington, Jim Choumas and Pablo Schneider, each of whom will bolster core initiatives.

The appointments reflect firm’s continued focus on putting customers first, simplifying channel partner programs, strengthening financial growth, and driving greater employee engagement.

This team was attracted to Panzura in part due to the burgeoning market opportunities for the company. Hybrid-cloud data management providers are becoming even more critical to digital transformation in the enterprise.

“Rooted in a perspective of customer service earned over more than two decades, I am excited about what we are doing at Panzura to enhance the experience of our customers and add real value to their business,” new chief services officer James Seay.

According to a recent report by DCIG, as SDS continues to accelerate enterprise adoption for storage management, organizations are concurrently adopting hybrid cloud. The hybrid cloud market is expected to grow 20% incrementally by $67.62 billion through 2024. The SDS market, simultaneously trending at a compound growth rate of 27%, is forecast to reach $42.79 billion in the same period.

“We couldn’t be more proud of the diversity and world-class expertise represented by our team,” said Jill Stelfox, CEO. “Together, these senior leaders bring tremendous advantage to our customers, and as true trailblazers in their fields, they offer finely honed strategic and technical acumen that will help us play the game at the highest level.“

As Panzura’s new CFO, drawing on her strong record with large enterprises, Judy Kopa will drive plans to help scale the company as it continues on a trajectory of significant growth. Managing on-prem and cloud solutions is complex, and Seay’s remarkable expertise in enterprise cloud deployments will provide incalculable benefits to Panzura customers.

“Panzura’s legacy of bringing together great people to build great products has been a tremendous asset and differentiator in the market. The creative way in which we’ve supported our people through the pandemic attracted me to the company,” said Joseph Hopkins, who assumes the new role of chief people officer.

An enthusiastic people-focused thought leader, Hopkins will align company’s people strategy to ensure BC and resilience. He will lead all aspects of people operations, including culture, employee engagement, talent acquisition, total rewards, organization development, diversity, equity and inclusion as the firm is poised to double its staff this year. More than 70 people have joined the company in the last 6 months.

Panzura’s senior management team has also been expanded to include 2 new VPs and a director. Exponentially large and complex hybrid cloud deployments require commensurate technical advances. Thomas Arlington, new director, solutions architects, is focused on pre-sale technology design, and provides critical direction on the creation, documentation and development of solutions to meet the needs of specific customers and industry use cases.

Following progress and expansion in channel relationships last year, Jim Choumas has been brought on board as VP, commercial sales. He has more than 20 years of experience building sales and channel organizations for both start-ups and Fortune 100 companies. Moreover, as VP of business and corporate development, Pablo Schneider is responsible for creating strategic business partnerships and driving new revenue sources in support of sales targets and marketing goals.

   Judy Kopa, CFO
He brings a wealth of financial leadership and business strategy experience. Previously, she was CFO at Gigster where she contributed to the company’s expansion from services to a SaaS platform model for freelance and remote workforces. She also served as CFO for Cisco‘s AppDynamics business unit as well as advising and supporting the CDO to drive software and subscription strategy and monetization, and as VP, global financial planning and analysis for SAP‘s SuccessFactors cloud division.

James Seay, chief services officer
He was GM at DXC Technologies where he focused on vision and strategic planning to maintain existing customers and pursue new business opportunities for the energy industry in North America. He has served in leadership roles around sales, service delivery, channel development, and customer engagement for technology industry firms including Arrow Electronics, Diebold Nixdorf, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Siemens and Alcatel-Lucent.

Joseph Hopkins, chief people officer
Leader in human capital management, he has crafted and led a variety of initiatives that create positive employee experiences across the technology, aerospace, healthcare and energy industries. He is recognized as a subject matter expert in championing, delivering and executing HR solutions that align to business demands and growth. Most recently, he led HR programs for DXC Technology, as well as serving as a key HR thought partner for BD and Boeing.

Thomas Arlington, director, solutions architects
With more than 15 years experience in the technology industry, he comes to Panzura with deep solution architecture experience in building robust strategies and techniques to manage petabytes of data and billions of files across any cloud configuration. He previously directed solutions architect for Igneous, driving public cloud services through design and development of first SaaS customers, as well as in key channel technical and engineering leadership positions with Qumulo and EMC’s Isilon storage division.

Jim Choumas, VP, commercial sales
He is an industry veteran with more than 20 years of experience in data services and modern data management. Prior to joining Panzura, he served as VP sales at Igneous. He previously built Qumulo‘s channel partner program and ecosystem as the director of channels for North America, and held progressively complex enterprise sales leadership and business development roles at NetApp, Fusion-io (now Sandisk), Nimbus Data, and SGI.

Pablo Schneider, VP, business and corporate development
He brings a range of international business expertise. His work has focused on helping companies grow through business development and innovation programs that advance market leadership and customer affinity. His long-time affiliations in business, media, leadership, and education include The Wider Net, APCH, Renaissance Dinners, MBN USA and WE USA, NACD, HITEC, Prospanica, Ascend, Thunderbird, TX Lyceum, LEAD San Diego, San Diego State University, and Grossmont College.