Steven Rose EMEA VP, Pure Storage

Pure Storage, Inc. is expanding its executive leadership team in Europe, EMEA with the addition of several storage industry veterans and anchored by the appointment of Steven Rose, EMEA VP for Pure Storage.

Rose’s initial focus in the region will be on geographical expansion, channel development and growing enterprise sales.

Carlo Wolf, director of Central EMEA and Peter Gadd, director of Northern EMEA, also join Pure Storage from Cisco Systems and EMC, respectively.

“Steven’s exemplary track record in high growth and technology industry leadership will be a tremendous advantage and he is joining us at the perfect time for Pure,” said David Hatfield, president, Pure Storage. “Our continued rapid expansion across 9 countries over the past 12 months coupled with the growth of our team and business operations is creating exponential routes to market for Pure in Europe, Middle East and Africa. Steven will build on the incredible foundation we’ve established of a robust ecosystem of partners, customers and employees, which has resulted in unprecedented storage sales growth.”

  Rose, who joins from Violin Memory, brings more than a quarter of a century’s technology industry experience to the role, including overseeing Commvault‘s international expansion from $10 million to $110 million and an IPO over six years. Prior to Commvault, he worked for Veritas for four years as VP UK and Ireland, overseeing 40% year-on-year growth and before that spent four years as EMEA VP for NEON through the company’s IPO and acquisition by Sybase. He attended the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst as an Officer Cadet, serving as an officer in the British Army for six years.

 Wolf joins Pure Storage as the regional director for Central Europe based in Munich, Germany. He has spent more than 25 years in the IT industry, and most recently spent 18 years at Cisco in various roles across several countries where he was responsible for growing the technology business revenue exponentially. He joined Cisco via the acquisition of Stratacom, with only 4 people, and finished as the VP/GM of Cisco Germany, with over $1 billion in revenue, 1,000 employees under management and a strongest partner network in the region.

   Gadd brings over a decade of experience in senior roles in the storage industry, most recently at EMC, where he demonstrated a track record generating revenue, meeting customer’s needs and establishing operational infrastructure.

Joao Silva will continue his leadership role across EMEA as VP, EMEA channel sales and lead emerging market development across the region for Pure Storage.

“I am confident that Pure Storage is going to change the way companies think about using technology to solve their business problems,” said Rose. “We are only just beginning to see how flash storage is changing the way we work just as it has changed our experience of interacting with data as consumers – whether it’s Google search, reading on a tablet, or snapping a photograph on a mobile device. This same experience is coming to the enterprise and Pure is the company pioneering this change.”