Unify, formerly Siemens Enterprise Communications, has announced the appointment of Dean Douglas as CEO.
He succeeds Hamid Akhavan who joined as CEO from Deutsche Telekom in February 2010.
Douglas, who is currently president and CEO of enterprise technology distributor Westcon Group, was previously CEO of LCC International and has also held a number of executive roles at both IBM and Motorola.
He will begin his role as CEO for Unify on January 16th 2014, and Akhavan will join the Executive Board.
Commenting on his appointment as CEO, Douglas said: "I am very excited about joining Unify. The company has a long and distinguished heritage, and yet has an agenda to reinvent itself and the industry. Cloud-based delivery opens up entirely new consumption, commercial and distribution models and I see Unify as perfectly positioned to innovate new ways for enterprise users to access the best collaboration tools.
"I look forward to working with Hamid as I transition into the role. We will continue to open the eyes of the industry to what is possible, and then deliver – creating new value for our customers, partners, shareholders and our people."
Akhavan commented on the Unify changes: "I am truly proud of what we have achieved so far. We have worked hard on improving our cost structures while raising our customer satisfaction to the highest levels and developing our product portfolio to the most exciting in the industry. This has been a very demanding task but the great people within Unify have risen to the challenges time and again. I’m very happy to support Dean as we embark on this next stage in Unify’s journey under his leadership."
