OpenDrives Bolsters Sales and Product Teams

OpenDrives, Inc. announced several strategic hires to its sales and product divisions amid broad expansion across the company and emergence into new verticals.

These hires include Ethan Cole (formerly AT&T) as director of product management and Tim Chunn (formerly NetApp) as director of business development.

In addition, 2 new channel account managers, Mike Novoselac (formerly Dell) and Eric Zappia (formerly Quantum), and four regional territory managers, Daniel Hatch and Jason Matousek (both formerly Quantum), Craig Alger (formerly Dell EMC) and Chesed Patt (formerly Qumulo) have joined the company.

Announcement comes amid a period of significant growth for the company following its latest $20 million funding round announced in January 2021, and product advancements and recent partnerships including a channel partnership with Spectra Logic Corp. and debut of its containerization marketplace in March 2021.  

The firm has solved demanding workflows in M&E, from workstation-level to enterprise whether on-premise or in the cloud, for hundreds of M&E companies, including  Home Box Office, Inc. (HBO), CBS Sports, a registered trademark of CBS Broadcasting Inc., Spotify AB and Sony Interactive Entertainment, Inc., in addition to healthcare diagnostics, for customers including Steadman Clinic, and advertising with Deutsch, Inc.

Through building customizable NAS solutions, which are powered by a centralized software platform that is flexible and open, OpenDrives’ technology is designed to meet and exceed the performance needs of other industry verticals, such as security and surveillance, enterprise backup and recovery, and genomics.

“OpenDrives’ continued momentum would not be possible without adding talent to our already strong team. Our new and existing team members are the heart-and-soul of our business,” said David Buss, CEO. “As the company has grown, so has the number of industries we’re able to serve. I’m thrilled to bring on so many talented people to our team this year. Their collective knowledge will be extremely valuable as we continue to further strengthen our position in M&E while expanding into new business segments.“

The company is scaling its team to meet product demand by new customers in emerging verticals, while also growing its channel strategy adding new partners such as Foto, DVE, AVC, SVC and Valient since its Insight announcement, building on existing partnerships with Diversified, Chesapeake and CMSI with over 65 authorized partners signed to-date. It is projected to exceed revenue by 200% through the end of 2021 and it has increased employee headcount by 70% in the first quarter alone.

Ethan Cole, who joins as director of product management, will help lead product strategy and management. Previously, he was lead product manager, next gen video at AT&T, and held a product leader position at NBC Universal.

Tim Chunn, who joins as director of business development from NetApp, will oversee the company’s expansion strategy and help expand market reach.

The sales team additions will help OpenDrives continue to grow, expand market share and build channel partnerships.

These new hires include:

• Mike Novoselac joins as global channel account manager. He is the former senior channel account manager at Dell and has held senior partner manager roles at Hewlett-Packard Enterprise and EMC. 
• Craig Alger joins as senior account executive. Most recently, he worked at Dell EMC as an account executive for over two years. He’s based in Atlanta, GA. 
• Eric Zappia joins as senior channel manager – M&E channel sales. He most recently worked at Quantum where he managed channel relationships in large East Coast markets for over 4 years. 
• Daniel Hatch joins as eastern territory sales manager. He is the former regional sales manager (Northeast) for Quantum, a position he held for over 7 years.  
• Chesed Patt joins as senior account manager – west coast. Most recently, he handled area sales for Qumulo throughout Southern California.  
• Jason Matousek joins as senior account executive – east coast.  Previously, he was regional sales manager – M&E (Northeast) at Quantum and enterprise account manager at T2 Computing.