Steve Barber Board’s Director, GreenBytes

GreenBytes, Inc. announced that former Segway CEO Jim Norrod and former Xyratex CEO Steve Barber have joined the company’s board of directors.

Norrod will serve as executive chairman and will lead a group that includes GreenBytes’ founders and investment partners from Battery Ventures and Generation Investment Management.

Both Norrod and Barber bring decades of business experience to GreenBytes, developer of patented IO-Offload desktop virtualization storage optimization software that maximizes the effective performance and capacity of existing infrastructure to provide persistent, full-featured virtual desktops with the manageability, scalability and affordability required for cloud-scale VDI deployments.

 Prior to joining GreenBytes, Norrod was CEO of Infinite Power Solutions from 2011 to 2012, which was acquired in January 2013. He was chairman, president and CEO of Segway, Inc. until the company was acquired in 2010. Previously, he was chairman and founder of Xanoptix, Inc., from 2000 to 2004. Prior to that, he was chairman of ITK International, a voice-over-IP company, which was acquired in 1998 by Digi International. He also served as chairman, president and CEO at Telebit Corporation, a dial-up networking company, from 1993 until it was acquired by Cisco Systems, Inc. in 1997. He has also run several technology start-ups, performed multiple technology turnarounds resulting in M&As. He is a former executive of IBM Corporation where he managed the General Motors account.

He holds a BS in Economics, cum laude from Oakland University, and an MBA from the University of Detroit with a concentration in Marketing.

  Barber previously served as CEO of Xyratex, OEM provider of enterprise storage solutions and HPC storage to leading IT brands, and test process equipment to the disk drive industry. Prior to this, he was a director of the company from its formation in 1994 following a MBO from IBM. During his 10-year tenure as CEO, the company grew revenues four-fold to over $1.6 billion with over 2,000 employees worldwide in the USA, UK, Mexico, Canada, Japan and across South East Asia. In addition, he served as a board member on the Solent Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP), a UK central government-empowered, business-led organization in conjunction with local government and higher education bodies to enable economic growth in the local region. Viewed as one of the most successful and effective LEPs in the country, securing over £30m ($50m) in central government funding in its first year of operation.

GreenBytes’ board of directors includes:

• Jim Norrod, executive chairman
• Robert Petrocelli, founder and CEO
• Richard W. Petrocelli, founder and CLOs
• Tom Crotty, general partner, Battery Ventures
• Colin le Duc, partner, Generation Investment Management
• Dr. Americo Petrocelli, director
• Steve Barber, director

Bob Petrocelli, founder and CEO, GreenBytes, said: “It’s exciting to have such experienced and accomplished industry and business veterans contributing their advice and wisdom to GreenBytes’ board of directors. We’re thrilled to have Steve Barber joining us considering how long we used Xyratex for our white box products, and we respect them as a leading provider of storage hardware. Jim Norrod’s credentials speak for themselves, and we cannot think of a more qualified and experienced executive to guide our Board through the company’s next phase of growth and development.”

Jim Norrod, executive chairman, GreenBytes, said: “Having received three major industry awards in the past three months, GreenBytes is demonstrating incredible momentum in the rapidly expanding virtual desktop market. I couldn’t be more pleased to be joining Bob Petrocelli and his outstanding team as Executive chairman as we continue to innovate and bring software-defined storage solutions to market that impact and enhance the offerings that our OEM customers are able to deliver.”

Steve Barber, director, GreenBytes, said: “GreenBytes’ zero latency inline deduplication technology is a key enabler for the increasing shift towards virtualized environments. GreenBytes’ differentiated offering, together with its OEM partner approach to the market, position it well for future growth, and I’m looking forward to working with the team during this exciting time for the company.“