Brocade has appointed Christine Heckart as its new Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). She will be responsible for helping the company to position it as a leading network provider to data centers in global markets. She will report directly to Brocade’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Lloyd Carney.

“With the adoption of fabric-based networking, NFV, SDN, and cloud-based computing, end users are actively seeking technology partners that can help them drive business transformation”, said Heckart. “I am excited by Brocade’s differentiated solutions, and believe we are well-positioned to drive the next wave of data center innovation. Brocade’s 18 year heritage in the data center and its partner ecosystem is well-renowned and I believe it is an exciting time to join the company”.

In her new role, she will be instrumental in generating brand awareness and in developing and executing demand generation programs across the globe. These Marketing initiatives will align and support the company’s business strategy for growth built on leading the industry in data center fabrics and driving market penetration in the emerging Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) and Software-Defined Networking (SDN) arenas.

“The data center must transform to meet the IT demands of the modern era that are driven by cloud, virtualization and mobility”, said Lloyd Carney, CEO of Brocade. “With our focus and world-class innovation, Brocade is uniquely qualified to help customers through this important transformation. Christine’s marketing experience and expertise is well suited to help propel Brocade forward in the global marketplace to drive demand for our next-generation solutions”.

With more than 25 years of experience in the high-tech industry, Heckart has held a number of senior marketing leadership positions at networking and other high tech companies. Most recently at ServiceSource, a SaaS provider that helps drive recurring revenue she served as EVP Strategy, Marketing, People and Systems where she was responsible for establishing a new market around recurring revenue management. Prior to that, Heckart held CMO roles at NetApp and Juniper Networks, as well as being General Manager, TV, Video and Music Business at Microsoft. Heckart serves on the Board of Directors at Lam Research, a leading provider of  wafer fabrication equipment to the semiconductor industry.