Avaya has made another change in channel leadership. Tom Mitchell, the current channel chief and head of global sales for Avaya has decided to leave the company at the end of this fiscal quarter (September 30th).
Replacing him will be former Cisco Canada president Pierre Paul Allard, who is currently the senior vice president of global strategy and development for Avaya.
Avaya officials told CDN that this move is part of the natural progression of a company in transformation.
In January of 2012, Mitchell took over from Jeremy Butt who left Avaya after integrating the Nortel Networks acquisition into a channel sales model. Butt then became the in charge of distributor’s Westcon EMEA operation. Mitchell came to Avaya after a long stint at Cisco, where he was the worldwide channel chief.
Mitchell worked to align the channel and Avaya inside sales force in a single direction. This enabled Avaya to bring together all go-to-market motions and further align efforts the company move into new markets and new geographies.
These moves are occurring during a time where Avaya cut down its operating loss but still finished in the red for 2012. Avaya has suffered through two turbulent years in the networking communications marketplace. Avaya last reported a loss of US$344 million for fiscal 2012 on revenue of US$5.17 billion, which is improved from its loss of US$863 million for fiscal 2011.
As for Allard, he assumed the helm at Cisco Canada in 1999 after six years as the company’s vice-president of enterprise operations and eastern Canada regional manager. He came to Cisco after a number of engineering and marketing jobs in 13 years at IBM Canada in Montreal.
Allard’s term as Cisco Canada president was very good period in the company’s history, where the company outpaced rivals such as Nortel Networks and Lucent Technologies.