SNIA Europe announces 2013-2015 Board of Directors

The new Board is made up as follows:

• Gilles Chekroun: Cisco Systems, Belgium
• Bruno Guiet: Brocade, France
• Robin Kuepers: Dell, Netherlands
• Walter Moriconi: Oracle, Italy
• Markus Pleier: EMC Corporation, Germany
• Bob Plumridge: Hitachi Data Systems, UK
• Denise Ridolfo: NetApp, France & USA
• Daniel Sazbon: IBM, France
• Terry Woodjetts: HP, UK

Bob Plumridge, the current SNIA Europe Chairman, said “It has been my great pleasure to serve as Chair of SNIA Europe for the last four years, it has been a period of great change, both in terms of technology and the evolving needs of our customers, for both SNIA and the industry as a whole.

I wish to thank all the present and former members of both the Board and the Country Committees for all their dedication and hard work in helping to continue to drive the changes needed to SNIA Europe in order for the association to remain both relevant and viable in today’s ever changing world. I also look forward to continuing to contribute in whatever capacity to SNIA Europe and the industry as a whole.”

Markus Pleier, the current SNIA Europe Vice Chairman, said, “I look forward to working with the new Board. Our team of volunteers is committed to providing the highest level of support and I am proud to be a part of such a dedicated team. In addition, with our new SNIA Europe membership structure in place, I truly believe we are demonstrating that SNIA Europe is now more accessible than ever before to all parties in the industry. I would like to welcome new members and offer the service of this new board to jointly driving Storage adoption and awareness through professional education.”

SNIA Europe has been supporting the storage industry for more than ten years, and as a regional affiliate of the global SNIA organisation, SNIA Europe advances the interests of the EMEA storage industry by driving the evolution and adoption of storage standards and technologies, educating the market and influencing relevant EU and national policies.

With a large base of member companies spanning the global storage market, and open to vendors, channel partners, industry influencers, and academics, SNIA is a true industry catalyst that connects professionals within the IT industry, enabling knowledge exchange and thought-leadership for the benefit of both the industry and storage professionals. Its members bring their collective expertise to educate IT professionals on key storage technologies such as: Big Data & Analytics, Cloud Storage, Data Management, Storage Management, Data Protection Storage Security, Business Continuity and
emerging technologies such as Flash and Software Defined Storage.

As a non-profit, vendor-neutral organisation, SNIA Europe actively recruits members in order to consistently maintain a well-balanced, valued, storage-focused industry organisation that provides an invaluable community where storage professionals can engage with and learn from their peers. SNIA Europe members are open, easy to approach and always willing to listen to, help educate and influence the industry community in a highly collaborative way and based on common goals and strategic direction. The collective voice of SNIA Europe’s members can be heard through our interaction with industry’s leading press and analysts, presenting at key industry events, delivering vendor-neutral webcasts, storage certifications and trainings.