George Symons CEO, Gridstore

Gridstore, Inc. has named George Symons as its CEO and member of the board of directors.

The storage industry veteran brings over 25 years in growing successful storage businesses in the Fortune 500 and emerging technology sectors.

He replaces Gridstore founder, Kelly Murphy will serve as chief strategy officer and will remain on the board as the company continues to deliver a new generation of storage solutions for the mid-market.

"George has a proven track record in growing world-class enterprise storage businesses," said Murphy. "The board and our investors from GGV Capital, ONSET Ventures and NCB Ventures are excited George will be joining Gridstore as CEO, bringing his leadership to the company’s operations and also driving its innovation and growth."

 Symons brings nearly three decades of leadership experience in both operational and strategic roles for successful storage businesses including EMC, Legato, Nexsan and Sun Microsystems. He comes to Gridstore from Nexsan Technologies, where he was chief strategy officer, responsible for strategic relationships and planning for the company. He served at Nexsan through the company’s $120 million acquisition to Imation in January 2013.

Before his tenure at Nexsan, Symons was COO of XIO Storage where the company executed a complete product and market transition. In addition, he served as the CEO of Yosemite Technologies and has held key executive management positions at EMC, Legato and Sun Microsystems. At EMC he was CTO of information management and was responsible for defining its product and technical strategy.

Symons holds a BA in Management Science and Computer Science from the University of California, San Diego, and an MBA from the University of California, Los Angeles.

"Gridstore is a company that has a truly disruptive technology that is changing the landscape of how storage is deployed, managed and scaled and I am excited to lead the company as we execute on our next phase of product innovation and growth," said  Symon. "The company has a dynamic storage platform, The Grid, that breaks the mold of legacy storage models to deliver a new generation of enterprise-class storage solutions that provide superior benefits and value for our customers and channel partners today and for the future."