Parallels (http://www.parallels.com/), which specializes in cloud services enablement (about two-thirds of the company’s business) and desktop virtualization software (including Parallels Desktop for Mac), has announced the appointment of new Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Michael Toutonghi, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) David Arkley and Vice President and General Manager of Europe and North Africa (EUNA) Jesper Frederiksen, who all fill key roles for driving Parallels’ continued growth.
The company generates more than U.S. $100 million in revenue and employs a global workforce of over 800 staff across the U.S., Europe and Asia. Parallels Desktop for Mac lets you run Windows applications on a Mac without rebooting. Parallels Hosting and Cloud Service Delivery solutions enable service providers to deliver and profitably grow hosting and cloud services for over 148 million small businesses worldwide.
“Parallels has a history of innovation and attracting top talent. Michael, David and Jesper have proven track records and are huge additional assets for our company and leadership team,” says Parallels CEO Birger Steen. “Their appointment is the latest in a series of steps that we are taking to further strengthen our strategic execution and accelerate growth on a worldwide scale.”
CTO Michael Toutonghi will serve Parallels as its technical visionary and evangelist, driving alignment across the entire hosting and cloud automation product lines and guiding engineering efforts throughout the company. He will focus on strengthening Parallels Automation position as the platform of choice for hosting and cloud service providers, while identifying next-generation capabilities for customers and partners.
Toutonghi will work closely with the CEO, senior vice president of engineering, board of directors and executives across the company to ensure technical strategy aligns with Parallels’ broader vision and customer requirements. He’s the inventor or co-inventor of 19 issued patents and brings a deep technology background to Parallels. He is one of a select group of only 22 Technical Fellows at Microsoft Corporation who are recognized as being instrumental in developing and driving technical strategies for Microsoft and the technology industry.
CFO David Arkley joins Parallels’ leadership team with a background as a financial expert and advisor. He’ll be a key contributor for shaping the company’s future direction as it continues its growth trajectory. He brings more than 20 years of experience in financial services and strategy, most recently in a senior financial role with Itron, a provider of energy and water resource management solutions for nearly 8,000 utilities in 130 countries around the world.
Arkley served in a variety of roles within Itron, including as CFO of Itron North America, where he was critical in positioning the domestic business to grow to $1 billion plus in revenue, and as vice president of mergers and acquisitions, where he led the $1.7 billion acquisition of Actaris Metering Systems. In addition to the two C-level executives, Jesper Frederiksen also joined Parallels in November as VP and GM of EUNA. Frederiksen will provide leadership and oversight of all sales activities across in Europe and North Africa.
Jesper was most recently with Symantec, where he was vice president of EMEA for the Symantec.cloud business. He previously held positions at Google, Postini, Net IQ, VERITAS Software and KVS.
In a conversation with “MacNews/MacTech,” Steen says the Mac part of Parallel’s business is growing even faster than the Mac platform — which consistently outperforms the computer industry as a whole. If Mac shipments go up 15-20%, sales for Parallels products for the platform normally go up about twice as much.
“One reason, of course, is that there are an increasing number of Mac users,” Steen says. “And an increasing number of the people who buy and use Macs these days want to use them with other forms of technology — most of that being Windows. Our products allow allow different technologies to coexist.”
Also, many businesses are now offering “choice programs” (in which employees can choose to use a Mac or PC) or “bring your own computer programs” (in which you can bring your computer of choice to work). The Parallels Enterprise for Mac Edition is tailored to these scenarios.
So what’s next for Parallels? “We’ll be looking for any acquisition that will better serve our customers,” Steen says. “There are also increasing opportunities in different geographies, such as Latin America. We’ll continue to build a really strong company. And we’ll continue to hire.”
