Russell Johnson Joins as COO and Gene Spies Named CFO as Demand for Transporter Private Cloud Appliances Gains Significant Traction Over Public Cloud and Legacy NAS Offerings

SANTA CLARA, CA – April 13, 2015 — /BackupReview.info/ — Connected Data today announced that Russell Johnson has been named the company’s Chief Operating Officer and Gene Spies has been named the company’s Chief Financial Officer, as demand for Transporter private cloud appliances gains significant traction over public cloud and legacy NAS offerings. The two C-level executive appointments reflect continued rapid growth in the technology industry’s file synchronization and sharing (FSS) market.

International Data Corporation (IDC) forecasts that the FSS market will grow at a 23.1% five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) through 2018 to $2.3 billion. The healthy growth rate through 2018 will continue to be driven by the shift to cloud, mobile use of FSS, and the ability to share and collaborate with others effectively.

In February, Connected Data released two new private cloud file sync and share appliances—the Transporter 15 and 30 storage devices—designed to deliver critical business-class file sharing features, performance, and capacity to small businesses, departments, and remote offices. ZDNet recently called the Transporter “a great alternative to less secure public cloud offerings” and “a perfect solution for businesses that want to allow collaboration and file sharing between remotely located users, but that also want to maintain some control over their assets.” (1)

Mr. Johnson brings over 20 years of sales, marketing, and general management leadership to the organization. In his new role as COO, he will be responsible for global sales, manufacturing, and operations; customer service and support; and channel marketing. Before joining Connected Data, Johnson previously served as Senior Vice President with Barracuda Networks, in which capacity he managed international sales and marketing as well as global business workflow and optimization of the customer experience, ultimately leading to a successful IPO. He also previously held the position of President for the semiconductor division of e2v. Prior to e2v, Russell held sales and general management executive positions at Adaptec and Applied Micro and was involved in the successful sale of the storage division of Applied Micro to LSI Corporation.

Mr. Spies, who has been appointed Connected Data’s CFO, brings over 20 years of financial, accounting and leadership experience specifically in the technology industry. In his new role he will be responsible for finance, accounting, tax, legal, human resources and sales operations. Mr. Spies was previously Nexsan Corporation’s CFO where he was involved in their successful acquisition by Imation for $120 million. Before joining Nexsan, Mr. Spies held numerous finance roles at Xylan Corporation, which was acquired by Alcatel, and as a Senior Manager at KPMG LLP.

“We are pleased to announce the appointments of Russell and Gene to our executive team as we execute on the next phase of rapid growth,” said Geoff Barrall, CEO, Connected Data. “They have incredible track records in building companies from early stage to successful acquisitions and IPOs. Their talent will be instrumental as we expand our footprint and deliver the Transporter suite of private cloud appliances that provide the performance, privacy and security controls that enterprises demand – and that public cloud solutions can’t deliver.”

For more information, please visit: http://www.filetransporter.com/

(1) ZDNet Review: The Transporter Beams You Into the Future of Private Cloud – http://goo.gl/59OJXP

Tweet this: Russell Johnson and Gene Spies join @Connected Data executive team to drive growth of @FileTransporter private cloud storage appliance

About Connected Data 
Connected Data, the creator of Transporter, the world’s first private cloud storage appliance, is focused on changing the way consumers and businesses manage their files. Transporter appliances allow customers to privately sync, access, share and protect data at a fraction of the cost of fee-based cloud services. The fast-growing Transporter network includes over 35,000 users managing more than 20 Petabytes of storage all over the world. Connected Data is privately funded and based in Santa Clara, Calif. For more information, visit Connected Data.

Connected Data and Transporter are trademarks or registered trademarks of Connected Data, Inc. All other trademarks used are the property of the respective trademark owners.

Media Contacts:
Sabrina Sanchez
The Ventana Group
ssanchez@theventanagroup.com
(925) 785-3014

Nicole Gorman
The Ventana Group
ngorman@theventanagroup.com
(508) 397-0131

Source: Connected Data

 

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