Panasas Expands Senior Team With Addition of Tech Veterans Todd Ruff and Brian Reed

Company also adds Richio Aikawa to lead vertical expansion into financial services and trading markets; three new hires bring 70-plus years combined experience to HPC storage leader’s management

SUNNYVALE, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–#AI—Panasas® announced today that Todd Ruff, vice president of marketing, and Brian Reed, vice president of product and alliances, have joined the company’s senior management team. Richio Aikawa has also joined Panasas as director of vertical solutions, a key role as the company looks to expand its focus for financial services, trading and manufacturing customers. All three executives will report to Chief Operating Officer Brian Peterson.

“Our current growth trajectory, coupled with the addition of three great senior leaders, reflects today’s demand for an enterprise-grade, high-performance computing experience,” said Peterson. “Todd and Brian are exemplary leaders who will help expand our diverse customer base – a base whose diversifying workloads increasingly requires adaptable HPC storage solutions. Richio meanwhile will leverage his expertise in critical industries to help us create a stronger set of vertical solutions.”

Reed is focusing his efforts on expanding the company’s ecosystem, including strategic alliances and partnerships. Working closely with the Panasas engineering and development teams, he will provide guidance on the company’s high-performance computing data storage roadmap. Reed brings more than 30 years of sales, product management and business development experience, including product lifecycle, market expansion and strategic customer negotiations. Prior executive positions include global vice president of product management at Packsize, vice president of marketing and product management for the Emulex Division at Broadcom, and various executive positions at Emulex, Vixel and IBM. Reed holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from the University of Southern California.

Ruff brings a broad range of marketing expertise to Panasas. Most recently, he served as vice president and managing director of CRM and Loyalty at Austin-based T3, where he represented brands such as YUM!, HBO, 7-11 and Boston Consulting. He also helped build Dell’s in-house agency, Dell Blue, and led the agency team for Dell at Young & Rubicam. In these roles at Dell, Ruff worked on various Dell storage products including those which came in via acquisition, such as Ocarina and Isilon. In his 20-plus years in marketing, Ruff has also served in leadership roles at Contravent, Razorfish and McCann. He holds a bachelor’s degree in communications from the University of Utah.

Aikawa, in addition to his vertical duties, will be working with Panasas partners, OEMs and end users throughout Japan. He is an accomplished professional with more than 20 years of experience in the enterprise storage, software, networking, server, operating systems, and cloud platform markets. Previously, he held senior positions at Netlist, Solarflare and Emulex. Aikawa holds a bachelor’s degree in mathematics-system science from the University of California at Los Angeles; a master’s degree in electrical engineering from California State University, Fullerton; and an MBA from the University of Redlands.

About Panasas

Panasas delivers high-performance computing (HPC) data storage solutions that support industry and research innovation around the world. Whether it’s building the next Dreamliner, winning a Formula One race, creating mind-bending visual effects, curing disease, or modeling climate change, the world’s leading companies trust Panasas to support their most innovative HPC projects. For more information, visit www.panasas.com.

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Contacts

Panasas Press Contacts:
North America:

Dave Reddy

Big Valley Marketing

Tel: 650.868.4659

dreddy@bigvalley.co

Europe:

Rhianna Bull

Napier Partnership Limited

Tel: +44 (0) 1243 531123

rhianna@napierb2b.com