COO Dixon Doll Leaving Violin Memory

Violin Memory, Inc. announced that Dixon R. Doll, Jr. will step down from his position as COO to pursue other personal and professional opportunities, effective today.

He has also notified the board that he will step down from his board position.

“While this was a difficult decision, in light of recent changes at the company, I believe that now is an appropriate time to let new leadership chart our future course. I wish the company every success and have tremendous confidence in the long-term growth opportunities for Violin,” he said.

Howard A. Bain III, chairman and interim CEO, said: “On behalf of the board and the entire Violin team, I want to thank Dixon for his contributions to the company over the past four years as we pioneered the future of flash storage in the enterprise data center. Dixon has played an instrumental role in our successful efforts to build a strong and deep bench of talent within our organization that remains focused on strengthening our customer relationships, increasing our engagement with customers and partners and driving operational efficiencies that will benefit all stakeholders.”

“I have a great deal of admiration and respect for the Violin team, and believe they are well positioned to remain at the forefront of our industry,” said Doll. “While this was a difficult decision, in light of recent changes at the company, I believe that now is an appropriate time to let new leadership chart our future course. I wish the company every success and have tremendous confidence in the long-term growth opportunities for Violin.”

 Dixon Doll, Jr. was COO at Violin and a member of the board of directors since September 2009.

He was previously the SVP of sales and corporate development at Fusion-io for one year, from March 2008 to February 2009. He built the field sales team from infancy and led Fusion-io to its first 300 enterprise customers and 30 business partners.

Previously, he founded Longstreet Ventures, a consulting company that provided angel investment capital and assisted CEOs and boards of directors of start-ups in developing strategic options. He worked with the CEO of Trapeze Networks and Revolution Partners during its acquisition by Belden in 2008.

He began in the technology industry as a business development manager in 1994 at Oracle Corporation in the business alliances division. He subsequently served as VP of corporate development at New Era of Networks (NEON), a public company in the middleware space from 1998-2001 through its acquisition by Sybase.

While at NEON he built the channel sales organization from infancy in 1998 to $50 million in 2001 while participating in NEON’s M&A activities, including strategic partnerships and 12 acquisitions. He later served as the VP of corporate development at Recourse Technologies (2001), a security technology company sold to Symantec in 2002 for $135 million.

He is a graduate of Georgetown University class of 1990 where he received his BA in Government and the University of Michigan Graduate School of Business class of 1994 where he received his MBA. He was a White House Intern in 1989.