… Gary Messiana CEO, Cirtas

Cirtas Systems announced that Gary Messiana has been appointed chief executive officer.

Messiana is a seasoned industry veteran who has led a number of startups into high growth markets and successful exits; his background includes CEO positions with Netli and Diligent Software. Company co-founder Dan Decasper will continue in his role as CTO, responsible for the vision and strategic direction of the company’s products.

"We enjoyed a tremendous market response to the introduction of our Bluejet Cloud Storage Controller in 2010," said Cirtas CTO Dan Decasper. "To further propel our growth, we were looking for a proven and accomplished CEO who could spearhead the rapid expansion of our business. Gary’s track record of past successes fits extremely well at Cirtas, and we feel privileged that he selected us from the sizable list of opportunities that were available to him."

"I am excited to join the talented team that is making it possible for enterprise organizations to take advantage of cloud economics, without compromising their high standards for data accessibility and protection," said Gary Messiana, CEO for Cirtas. "Cirtas has made the long-time promise of cloud storage a reality. Not only is Bluejet disruptive to traditional storage providers, but it can eliminate the need for backups altogether, vastly simplifying the overall storage environment."

Messiana joins Cirtas from Bessemer Venture Partners, where he was an entrepreneur in residence, focused on evaluating investment opportunities in the technology sector. Prior to Bessemer, Gary served as president and CEO at Netli and CEO of Diligent Software Systems. Messiana has also held key senior management positions with diCarta, CrossWorlds Software, Sequent, Triathon, Inference Corporation, and Brightware.

He graduated with honors from Binghamton University in New York.

Cirtas emerged from stealth mode in September 2010 and continues to build its management team with notable industry executives. Suresh Vasudevan, president and CEO of Omneon and former SVP of product operations at NetApp, was recently appointed to its board of directors; Steve Mallard joined the company as vice president of sales from Riverbed, with prior tenures at EMC, Network Appliance and Sun Microsystems.

"Cirtas is changing the way the enterprise looks at and thinks about cloud storage. The cloud has been top of mind for IT for the past several years, but few solutions have emerged that put its promise within reach for the enterprise in a tangible way – until now," said Suresh Vasudevan, President of Omneon and a member of Cirtas’ board of directors. "It is a sincere pleasure to serve on Cirtas’ board at such an exciting time in the company’s development. I now look forward to collaborating with Gary as CEO and Dan in his technology leadership position to further develop Bluejet and expand customer adoption."