The CodePlex Foundation announces the appointment of Paula Hunter to the position of executive director of the open-source organization. And Canonical hires a new chief operating officer.
The CodePlex Foundation has announced
the appointment of Paula Hunter to the position of executive director of the
open-source organization. And Canonical hires a new chief operating officer.
Hunter comes to the CodePlex Foundation with more than 15 years experience
in high technology marketing, operations and business development, including
leadership roles at open-source organizations Open Source Development Labs
(OSDL) and United Linux.
The CodePlex Foundation is a nonprofit foundation formed with the mission of
enabling the exchange of code and understanding among software companies and
open-source communities. Microsoft essentially took the idea behind its CodePlex community development site and
spun it out into an independent entity in September 2009. And former Microsoft
executive Sam Ramji joined to help lead the organization during the search for
a permanent leader.
Hunter is the first full-time staff member to join the CodePlex Foundation.
She will be responsible for the foundation's operations, including personnel,
budgets and programs, with primary responsibility for sponsor development,
evangelism for the foundation and its mission, and outreach to key open-source
organizations including other foundations.
"The CodePlex Foundation has a unique opportunity to facilitate interaction
among corporate software developers interested in participating in open-source
projects, the open-source community and software companies," Hunter said in a
statement. "I am looking forward to driving the Foundation's mission of
advancing dialogue between software companies and open-source communities,
supporting the board of directors, and working with sponsors and key
influencers to establish the Foundation as an essential facilitator of
community collaboration."
"Paula has a compelling combination of industry insight, executive-level
business savvy and experience working with not-for-profits and strong boards,"
said Sam Ramji, interim president, CodePlex Foundation board of directors, in a
statement. "With this appointment, the Foundation is taking a big step toward a
permanent management and governance structure that will aid us in achieving our
mission."
Most recently Hunter served as director of operations for SEMPO, the Search
Engine Marketing Professional Organization, a nonprofit professional
association working to increase awareness and promote the value of search engine
marketing worldwide. Prior to SEMPO, Hunter was director of worldwide marketing
and business development for the Open Source Development Labs, where she was
instrumental in driving membership growth of the industry advocacy group and led
initiatives to increase industry awareness and engage large enterprise IT
organizations with OSDL programs. Previously, Hunter was general manager of
UnitedLinux, a joint venture formed to create a unified Linux offering. She
began her career at Digital Equipment Corp., where she managed marketing
programs for DEC's UNIX Workstation and PC product lines.
Meanwhile, Canonical, the commercial
sponsor of Ubuntu Linux, announced on Feb. 5 that open-source industry
veteran Matt Asay has joined the company as chief operating officer. As COO,
Asay will be responsible for aligning strategic goals and operational
activities, the optimization of day-to-day operations, and leadership of
Canonical marketing and back-office functions.
Most recently, Asay was vice president of business development for
Alfresco. Asay has been involved with open source since 1998, and is one of the
industry's leading open-source business strategists.
"As more companies and people are embracing Ubuntu for their day-to-day
computing, we felt it critical to bring in a person who knew not just open
source, but has a long experience in making Linux relevant to businesses and
users alike," said Jane Silber, current COO
and soon-to-be CEO of Canonical.
Darryl K. Taft covers the development tools and developer-related issues beat from his office in Baltimore. He has more than 10 years of experience in the business and is always looking for the next scoop. Taft is a member of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and was named 'one of the most active middleware reporters in the world' by The Middleware Co. He also has his own card in the 'Who's Who in Enterprise Java' deck.
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