Pure Storage hires new EMEA VP after solid year

Pure Storage has bolstered its leadership team, bringing EMC veteran James Petter in as EMEA vice president.

The all-flash enterprise storage company today announced significant growth across EMEA, boosting bookings by more than 300% and more than doubling its customer base. Staff numbers in the region increased by more than 300% and its partner count surpassed 150.

"The channel ecosystem is vital to our success and this year we have focused on building strong relationships with the best integrators and Value Added Resellers across the region,” said president of Pure Storage, David Hatfield. “We’re incredibly excited by the response we’ve received from the channel. In our view it is a seal of approval for the transformational business benefits of enterprise flash; it also adds scope, reach and trusting relationships that are key to our success and the success of our customers.”

Petter spent a decade at EMC, most recently as senior VP for UK and Ireland. Pure Storage hopes that Petter can lead the EMEA team ‘through its next phase of explosive business growth’.

The EMC man is not the only new member of the EMEA senior management team. Alex McMullan joined as chief technology officer for the region back in July. Prior to joining Pure Storage, McMullan managed Barclays Capital’s distributed computing infrastructure.

“We’ve scaled the team, built a venerable customer roster, and expanded our presence from Sweden to South Africa, both with our own employees and a steadily-growing roster of business partners,” Hatfield commented. “We look forward to having more customers and partners across EMEA and around the world join us in leading the industry transition from legacy mechanical to 100% solid-state storage.”