Red Hat appoints IBM executive Andrew Brown as chief revenue officer

Open source giant Red Hat has announced the appointment of Andrew Brown as its new senior vice president and chief revenue officer. 

The former IBM executive joins the business immediately and will succeed current CRO Larry Stack from October 1. Stack will work alongside Brown through Q3 to ensure a smooth leadership transition, Red Hat said.

In his new role, Brown will oversee commercial and public sector sales, channel and alliance sales, consulting services, as well as Red Hat’s global go-to-market strategy.

“Red Hat has an enormous opportunity to fuel hybrid cloud transformation globally, but this requires seamlessly integrating our product vision with our sales approach,” said Matt Hicks, president and CEO of Red Hat. 

“Andrew understands the intricacies of Red Hat’s business and our culture, and brings vast experience in delivering customer value at scale across a wide range of technology areas as we seek to address evolving customer requirements.”

A software industry veteran, Brown arrives with more than 28 years’ experience in hybrid cloud and transformational technology. He began his career at IBM as an intern, before working his way up to a variety of senior leadership roles across its software business.

Most recently, he served as general manager of IBM Technology Sales for the United Kingdom and Ireland. In that role, he was responsible for leading, transforming, and expanding the company’s Technology go-to-market organization, as well as overseeing the sales, strategy, management, and delivery of IBM offerings – including systems, public cloud, data and AI solutions, and more. 

Commenting on his new role at Red Hat, Brown said he was attracted by the open source company’s innovative approach to its operations.

“I have followed Red Hat’s growth and progress over the last few years and have been impressed by the agility, foresight, and innovative approach that the company and its culture embrace,” he said.

“I am hugely excited about joining this unique organization and working with our customer-facing teams to innovate, collaborate and scale the hybrid cloud solutions Red Hat possesses in its open source platform approach.”

Brown will replace outgoing CRO Larry Stack from October 1, who moves on to become a senior advisor within the IBM Global Government team.

“Being a part of Red Hat, particularly working with passionate and exceptional Red Hatters, is a highlight in my career as a servant leader,” Stack said. “I am proud of everything that we have been able to accomplish using a ‘Mission First, People Always’ motto. 

“I know that there is still so much to come and I look forward to seeing what Red Hat can achieve in the next phase of open source.”