New SNIA Europe Board of Directors

The Storage Networking Industry Association Europe announced its new board of directors elected by its members for the 2013-2015 term.

This group of nine IT experts will be accountable for the development of high-level tactics and the provision of guidance, direction and focus for the organisation’s activities across EMEA.

Four directors hold the officer positions of chairman, vice chairman, secretary and treasurer. Other members of the board are responsible for membership, technology, events, marketing, education and working directly with the association’s regional country committees.

The new board is made up as follows:

• Gilles Chekroun: Cisco Systems, Belgium
• Bruno Guiet: Brocade, France
• Robin Kuepers: Dell, Netherlands
• Walter Moriconi: Oracle, Italy
• Markus Pleier: EMC, Germany
• Bob Plumridge: HDS, UK
• Denise Ridolfo: NetApp, France and USA
• Daniel Sazbon: IBM, France
• Terry Woodjetts: HP, UK

Bob Plumridge, the current SNIA Europe chairman, said: “It has been my great pleasure to serve as chair of SNIA Europe for the last 4 years, it has been a period of great change, both in terms of technology and the evolving needs of our customers, for both SNIA and the industry as a whole. I wish to thank all the present and former members of both the coard and the country committees for all their dedication and hard work in helping to continue to drive the changes needed to SNIA Europe in order for SNIA Europe to remain both relevant and viable in today’s ever changing world. I also look forward to continuing to contribute in whatever capacity to SNIA Europe and the industry as a whole.”

Markus Pleier, current SNIA Europe Vice chairman, said: “I look forward to working with the new board. Our team of volunteers is committed to providing the highest level of support and I am proud to be a part of such a dedicated team. In addition, with our new SNIA Europe membership structure in place, I truly believe we are demonstrating that SNIA Europe is now more open than ever before to all parties in the industry. I would like to welcome new members and offer the service of this new board to jointly driving Storage adoption and awareness through professional education“.

SNIA Europe has been supporting the storage industry for more than ten years, and as a regional affiliate of the global SNIA organization, it advances the interests of the EMEA storage industry by driving the evolution and adoption of storage standards and technologies, educating the market and influencing relevant EU and national policies.

With a base of member companies spanning the global storage market, open to vendors, channel partners, industry influencers, and academics, SNIA is an industry catalyst that connects professionals within the IT industry, enabling knowledge exchange and thought-leadership for the benefit of both the industry and storage professionals. Its members bring their collective expertise to educate IT professionals on key storage technologies such as: data Pprotection storage security, BC and emerging technologies such as flash and software defined storage.

SNIA Europe advances the interests of the storage industry in driving the evolution and adoption of storage technologies and standards, educating the market and influencing relevant EU and national police.