James Hanley From Senior VP of Sales to CEO of Force10 Networks

Force10 Networks, in building and securing networks, announced that James Hanley has been named chief executive officer, succeeding Marc Randall, who announced his retirement from the company. Hanley, formerly senior vice president of worldwide sales at Force10, is an industry veteran with more than 20 years experience developing and leading global sales, marketing and operations teams, including serving in senior executive leadership positions at CA (formerly Computer Associates) and EMC.

“Through hard work by the Force10 team and our customer-driven focus, the company has grown at more than twice the average industry rate,” said Hanley. “We will use this foundation of success to continue the company’s leadership in providing the most efficient network infrastructure for the data center, while extending our reach to new applications and networks through management automation and virtualization.”

Before joining Force10, Hanley was senior vice president of worldwide field operations at NeoScale Systems. Prior to NeoScale, he served as senior vice president of worldwide partner sales at CA. Earlier, Hanley held executive roles in sales, field operations and channel development at EMC, including senior leadership positions in the company’s London and Hong Kong offices.

“James is the right person at the right time, with the ideal industry background and knowledge of the company’s products, customers and competitive differentiation necessary to take Force10 to its next stage of growth and industry leadership,” said Marc Randall, who served as CEO since 2003. “I leave the company knowing that James has the experience to ensure that Force10’s history of innovation, market leadership and revenue milestones are prologue to even greater success in the years ahead.”

Hanley becomes the chief executive of Force10 as the company concludes its 2008 fiscal year in which it posted a revenue growth rate well above the industry average while surpassing more than 750 customers worldwide and maintaining the second highest market share for total 10 Gigabit Ethernet revenue, according to the Dell’Oro Group.