Tom Whaley VP Sales, Vast Data

Vast Data, Inc. has appointed 3 industry leaders to its executive team.

It is hiring Helen Protopapas as VP of finance, Tom Whaley as VP sales, and Rick Franke as VP of global customer success, services and support.

The additions come amid accelerated global expansion and customer adoption as the company continues its period of growth.

Helen Protopapas will oversee efforts to further solidify financial underpinnings as it prepares for the next major step in the global development of the company. She previously served as divisional CFO of Ringier Group where she was responsible for all aspects of financial planning and reporting for the group’s technology and marketplaces division as the company eclipsed a $1 billion valuation at a time of tremendous growth. She holds experience working in M&A and private equity and has background working in international markets.

Tom Whaley will lead efforts as the company continues to ramp up customer adoption. Most recently, he presided over a team that transacted more than $400 million in annual business at NetApp, where he oversaw a global sales effort. He brings over 20 years of experience focusing on Fortune 50 customers from the service provider, telecommunications, M&E, oil and gas, and retail verticals. He has a background in guiding global sales strategy and execution centered around customers’ changing business and technical needs and has a track record of delivering consistent Y/Y revenue growth.

Rick Franke will be tasked with bolstering firm’s customer experience on a global level. He joins Vast after having served as the VP of global customer services and support at VMware, where he oversaw customer services and support operations. He joined VMware via its AirWatch acquisition in 2014. At AirWatch, he led the company’s global sales engineering, services, support and cloud reliability engineering teams from the early days through to the acquisition. He brings more than 20 years of experience in global, enterprise client relations and operations.

“2020 revealed a tremendous global demand for Vast’s revolutionary Universal Storage platform,” said Renen Hallak, founder and CEO. “We are excited to welcome Helen, Tom and Rick into leadership roles that will help elevate VAST to further capture the market opportunity in front of us. The addition of these ambitious and industrious leaders will further evolve and complement our team and our culture as we ready the company for the next decade of Universal Storage adoption.”