EMC UK channel overlord Poole exits role but not company

Ten months into Russell Poole’s chairmanship of EMC’s Brit channel and he trekking into Europe to take on a more lofty role in the organisation.

Poole replaced Terry Beale last August as the local channel chief, adding the reseller and distribution badges on his lapel to existing service provider and public sector responsibilities.

But he is set to head up the enterprise business in EMEA, reporting to regional overlord Adrian McDonald, according to company insiders.

EMC confirmed the move and that Kevin Sparks, cloud and service provider sales manager - already in the channel team - will be taking on the role.

It seems numerous partners feel EMC has gone off the boil this year, amid talk of wider personnel changes coming to the management teams.

“A lot of EMC’s sales districts struggled to hit the numbers and there are indications of a management reshuffle,” claimed a channel source.

In its first quarter of fiscal ’15, the company missed forecasted revenues by $75m and said storage was largely to blame for this, more specifically job cuts among the field sales teams in the organisation.

EMC, like other old world vendors, is trying to fend off the growing threat from relative upstarts including Nimble, Tintri and Pure Storage, which poached UK boss James Petter months ago.

Poole was not available to comment at the time of publication. ®