David Bangs SVP WW Sales, NexGen Storage

NexGen Storage, Inc. announced the expansion of its management team with the appointment of David Bangs as SVP of worldwide sales and Bruce Helart as VP of engineering and operations.

The company also named Larry Cormier to its board of directors. Bangs, Helart and Cormier each bring track records of success and leadership, and will focus on accelerating NexGen’s growth strategy, building its position in solid-state storage and delivering solutions to its customers and partners.

 A proven sales leader with deep channel knowledge and commitment, Bangs will be responsible for expansion of worldwide sales force. He brings channel experience and customer-focused success leading sales organizations within the storage technology industry.

Prior to joining NexGen, he was SVP of sales at Drobo where he helped lead the NEA- and Greylock-backed company to surpass the 200,000th customer mark, achieve its first 1PB sale and transition to generating more than 50% of revenues from the Drobo business line of products. Previously he managed the HP StorageWorks sales organization tasked with penetrating US Emerging Growth Accounts to deliver annual storage and networking products revenues in excess of $900 million.

Before his role at HP, Bangs was VP of worldwide sales at LeftHand Networks, in iSCSI SAN market, where he built and led the sales organization from initial shipments to more than 3,000 customer wins prior to the company’s acquisition by HP in November 2008. Prior to that, he held sales leadership roles at Quantum and Control Data.

He earned his BA (Honors) in Business from South Bank University, London, England.

 As VP of engineering and operations, Helart will be responsible for NexGen’s purpose-built PCIe solid-state storage solutions and accelerating product development and time-to-market. He brings 30 years of progressive management experience in the storage industry to the NexGen team with executive roles in operations, engineering, and supply chain and division management.

Prior to NexGen, he was executive director of engineering at Seagate Technology where he led multiple corporate initiatives, most recently as the R&D Project director for the Seagate Samsung HDD merger. Previous assignments included directing the design, development and production of Seagate’s retail products and director of volume products for client storage. During his career in the data storage industry, Bruce has overseen the development, launch and management of over 45 discrete products and product families. He’s directed major projects in the US, as well as China, Taiwan, Singapore and Korea.

He has a BA from the University of New Mexico.

 Larry Cormier‘s 30 years of experience spans key data center infrastructure technologies including LANs, WANs, storage, storage networks, and data protection. He is currently SVP of worldwide marketing for Silver Peak Systems, in wide area data networking. Silver Peak is his sixth technology start-up. Previous marketing and business development leadership roles include LeftHand Networks (HP), CommVault, Scentric, McData, StorageTek and Datapoint.

He also previously served as chief marketing officer during two terms as a board member for the Storage Networking Industry Association.

"NexGen has enjoyed a strong reception of our PCIe SSD storage systems in the market, and we are now making key investments in both people and technology to accelerate growth and drive the success of our customers and partners," said John Spiers, CEO and founder, NexGen Storage. "David Bangs brings proven success in high-growth businesses, deep knowledge of the market, and a strong track record of generating traction with innovative, advanced technologies, while Bruce Helart possesses a stellar reputation for advancing engineering and product development. We are pleased to welcome David, Bruce and Larry, and we look forward to their contributions as we take NexGen to the next level."