John McHugh Chief Marketing Officer at Brocade

Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. named John McHugh, a visionary in the Ethernet/IP networking industry, as vice president and chief marketing officer (CMO), responsible for the company’s global marketing and strategic alliance strategies. McHugh will report directly to CEO, Michael Klayko.

“I am delighted to bring someone of John’s caliber and unique expertise to Brocade. His thought leadership and insight into the networking industry will help drive our market – and mindshare in a space that represents significant future growth for the company,” said Michael Klayko, CEO of Brocade. “His proven track record for transforming businesses through periods of expansion and innovation make him a strategic member of my executive team who will bring Brocade’s vision of the next-generation enterprise network to market.”

 McHugh has almost 30 years of expertise and experience in the networking industry, driving innovation and profitability for a number of large companies. As part of his 26-year career at HP, McHugh held a variety of executive management positions including vice president and worldwide general manager of HP ProCurve Networking, building it from a start-up to a $1 billion plus business. During his tenure, he was responsible for global operations, strategic and tactical planning and business development. In 2005 the editors at Network World named McHugh as one of the ‘Top 50 Most Powerful People’. Network World praised McHugh for a number of accomplishments, most notably “for his well-rounded enterprise strategy, which encompasses convergence, wireless LANs, WAN access and more.”

More recently, McHugh was vice president and general manager of Nortel Networks’ Enterprise Network Solutions business unit, where he was responsible for the technology vision, R&D and business operations. McHugh drove the successful divesture of this business unit as an intact and profitable asset. Prior to Nortel, McHugh was with SilverLake Partners where he worked on M&A activity, and technology and company evaluations.

McHugh holds a B.S. in Computer Science and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Indiana. McHugh is married with two children and enjoys running and hiking.

“As a leading end-to-end networking company with a strong reputation for quality and innovation within Global 2000 companies, Brocade is extremely well positioned to capitalize on the enormous opportunities in the growing IT sector,” said John McHugh, Chief Marketing Officer. “I am thrilled to be joining the company at such a pivotal point of transformation as we bring the vision of the future of networking to Brocade’s broad base of customers and partners.”