Storage vendor Panasas has moved chief operating officer Tom Shea (pictured) to president and chief executive officer and member of the board of directors, effective immediately. He succeeds Faye Pairman
Tom Shea is an experienced executive with more than 20 years of business and engineering leadership in the storage industry, including tenures as CEO of Gear6 and Mirra, Inc.
Under Pairman’s leadership, Panasas drove an ambitious technology roadmap and market expansion that included introduction of the PanFS parallel file system, release of the ActiveStor high-performance data storage appliance based on commercial off-the-shelf hardware, and new customer acquisitions across a broad spectrum of industries, it says.
“It has been my privilege to lead the Panasas team over the past 10 years and I am proud of what we have accomplished together,” said Pairman. “We commercialized the product, expanded into new markets and did something very few data storage companies have achieved: building a new HPC parallel file system, an effort that took four years of deep engineering work. After focusing on product development and market expansion, it is now time to transition the company to customer-focused leadership, and I am confident that Tom will drive Panasas in that direction.”
