Kevin Vine VP EMEA, Connected Data

Connected Data, Inc., creator of the line of storage solutions and Transporter private cloud platform, announced the appointment of Kevin Vine as VP EMEA.

 He will report to Jillian Mansolf, EVP of global sales and CMO at Connected Data.

He has more than 25 years experience in the IT industry working for brands including HGST, Buffalo, Ericsson and US Robotics/3Com. His career has focused on creating strategies that impact sales and strengthen marketing efforts, more recently for G-Tech’s expansion into the Apple market. Prior to this he built and ran the entire Buffalo channel programme for the company’s range of consumer and business storage products. In addition to holding senior channel sales and management positions at these companies, he spent several years as MD of networking services at Ingram Micro.

Commenting on the appointment, Geoff Barrall, CEO and founder, Connected Data, said: “Kevin’s strong background in developing and building US brands’ market share in EMEA is impressive. His ability to understand the market and then rapidly and efficiently build out the best channel model is exactly what a fast-growing business like Connected Data needs. Kevin will play a fundamental role in our growth plans across EMEA in the second half of 2014 as we focus on building our sales, marketing and technical support in the region. We’re all extremely pleased to have him on board.”

In his new role, Vine will be tasked with managing and driving EMEA revenues of business portfolio which features the Drobo storage family and the new Transporter private cloud platform. While his team will continue to work closely with distributors CMS, Ingram Micro, Comline and Beta Distribution he expects to increase the number of resellers selling these brands within the next 12-18 months.

Vine said: “The combination of the Transporter and Drobo brands presents a compelling proposition to build a major channel business across EMEA serving the storage and private cloud needs of the consumer, prosumer and SMB communities. Not only is the technology outstanding – the business potential for the channel to both sell and integrate these solutions is excellent.”