Tuesday, 5 February 2008

Red Hat Shakes Up Senior Management Team in Japan

The world’s leading provider of open source solutions, Red Hat, said Monday that it has appointed Yuji Fujita as Chairman of Red Hat Japan (Red Hat KK), with an expanded portfolio as Director of Red Hat Asia Pacific, responsible for Japanese OEM partners.

Red Hat also announced the appointment of Yuji Hirokawa as President of Red Hat KK, succeeding Fujita.

“Red Hat believes in investing in the best people, capable of delivering the best service to our partners and customers in Asia Pacific,” said Gery Messer, President of Red Hat Asia Pacific.

“The quality of Red Hat’s human capital has contributed to our recognition by CIO Insight Magazine as the leader in vendor value, and our additional recognition in Japan by Nikkei Market Access as the number one IT vendor that customers intend to work with in the future.”

For the last three years in his role as President of Red Hat KK, Fujita was responsible for Red Hat's expansion in Japan. His vast experience in working with leading Japanese IT companies will help to fulfil Red Hat's goal of building a stronger partner ecosystem in Japan and around the world.

Hirokawa, newly appointed President of Red Hat KK, has over 27 years of experience in the technology industry. He will be responsible for overall operations, business development, marketing and sales in Japan, and will report to Gery Messer.

Hirokawa joins Red Hat from BEA Systems Japan, where he served as Senior Managing Director and Representative Director. Hirokawa also spent some 22 years at Hitachi Ltd. and Hitachi Data Systems, and held executive positions with Sun Microsystems Japan.

“The dynamic Asia-Pacific region offers significant growth prospects for Red Hat,” said Messer.

“Strengthening our operations in Japan is part of our strategic initiative to build a global community for collaborative innovation that includes accelerating the deployment of enterprise-class, open source solutions and nourishing a vibrant open source development and user community in Japan and the whole of Asia Pacific."