George Bennett Senior VP Americas at Quantum

Quantum Corp. announced that George Bennett has joined the company as senior vice president (SVP), Americas sales. Bennett brings more than 20 years of sales leadership experience to Quantum, having most recently served as SVP for the Americas at NetApp where he increased revenues 30 percent annually during his five-year tenure, significantly exceeding the storage industry’s growth rate. His appointment is the latest of several Quantum has made over the past year to enhance its leadership team, as the company has focused on providing customers with highly scalable, edge-to-core, integrated solutions that incorporate disk-based de-duplication and replication systems, tape automation products and common management and security.

"George has a proven track record of developing and leading highly productive sales teams that generate strong revenue growth through an ongoing commitment to understanding and addressing customer needs," said Bill Britts, executive vice president, sales, marketing and service at Quantum. "His depth of knowledge and vast experience will be invaluable as Quantum further expands and integrates our offerings and works closely with partners to meet customers’ data protection and retention challenges."

As SVP at NetApp from 2003 to early 2008, Bennett managed an organization of more than 1,000 people, including field and inside sales, systems engineering, field marketing, sales operations and leasing. Under his leadership, revenues increased from less than $600 million to more than $2 billion, as he spearheaded the company’s transition from technical product sales to comprehensive data management solution sales. Before being promoted to SVP, Bennett spent three years as a vice president responsible for a 23-state area, during which he grew sales by 25 percent annually.

Prior to NetApp, Bennett held executive sales positions at Target Marketing Systems, a sales consulting company acquired by Siebel Systems in 2000, and Data Race, a provider of voice over IP solutions. Before Data Race, Bennett spent 17 years at Memorex Telex, a manufacturer of desktop and enterprise storage products, where he held several high-level sales positions. He began his career as a sales representative for Unisys.

"Customers continue to struggle with securely storing and protecting ever-increasing volumes of data in a way that’s both cost- and energy-efficient," said Bennett. "They’re also looking for ways to easily manage this data across a distributed environment while ensuring that they can meet both near-term and long-term recovery requirements. I’ve been impressed with what Quantum has been doing to create integrated, edge-to-core solutions that address this full range of needs by leveraging the unique disk-based de-duplication technology in its DXi-Series portfolio, its long-standing leadership in tape and the data management expertise it has built with its StorNext software platform. So I’m very excited about working with the rest of the sales team and our partners to show customers all that Quantum has to offer today and moving forward."