People

posted on 12 May 2008 13:29

Jeff Benck, recently QLogic' president and chief operating officer, has joined Emulex as its new EVP and COO .

He will look after Emulex' 'engineering, marketing, operations, and sales organizations, and encompassing Emulex's HSP, ESP and INP product lines. ... (and) will focus on delivering growth and diversification through the creation of products and technologies that drive the adoption of Emulex products and expand the use of networked storage. (He) will report directly to Emulex President and CEO, Jim McCluney.'

Emulex already has a president so Benck has to be satisfied with an executive vice presidential title.

He left QLogic after little under a year, joining on April 20, 2007 where some viewed him as CEO H.K. Desai's heir apparent. It turned out to be more apparent than real. He now brings detailed knowledge of QLogic's operations to Emulex, particularly one supposes, those dealing with FCoE Converged Network adapters (CNAs). It begs the question as to why there wasn't a non-compete clause in his contract with QLogic, should he leave abruptly.

Benck left QLogic in mid-March, following on the heels of CFO Tony Massetti.

When he joined QLogic last year there was a conference call with Desai, such was the interest in his joining. He came from a long career at IBM where he was most recently responsible for development of IBM's industry standard server, storage and blade product lines, specifically VP of xSeries Servers, BladeCenter and Retail Store Solutions Development. He was the business line executive for IBM's BladeCenter product line of servers.

Emulex's McCluney said: "We are very fortunate to have Jeff join us. Our executive team is thrilled at the prospect of working with Jeff and I am sure that our employees will enjoy the same outstanding interactions that I have had with him. And most importantly, Jeff has a successful track record for developing strong relationships with customers, suppliers, and business partners. I am sure that Jeff's leadership skills will help us fully realize the growth opportunities in front of us."

The previous and long-serving COO at Emulex was Kirk Roller, who left to Join Wasabi Systems in mid-February.

QLogic appointed a new SVP and CFO, Simon Biddiscome, last month. Now Desai can focus on looking for a new COO, perhaps regretting that Emulex is getting the inside skinny on QLogic.

^{[Chris Mellor.]}