PRESS RELEASE
Appointment of CTO Michael Toutonghi, CFO David Arkley, and Europe & North Africa VP and GM Jesper Frederiksen bolsters executive bench and positions Parallels for accelerated global growth
London, UK, December 1, 2011 - Parallels, a global leader in cloud services enablement and desktop virtualisation software, today announced the appointment of new Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Michael Toutonghi, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) David Arkley and Vice President and General Manager of the Europe and North America (EUNA) Jesper Frederiksen, who all fill key roles for driving Parallels' continued growth. As one of the world's fastest growing software companies, Parallels generates more than U.S. $100 million in revenue and employs a global workforce of over 800 staff across the U.S., Europe and Asia.
Parallels Desktop for Mac is a leader in enabling to run Windows applications on a Mac without rebooting, with a 78 percent market share1and is used by more than 50 percent of Fortune 200 companies, while Parallels Hosting and Cloud Service Delivery solutions enable service providers to deliver and profitably grow hosting and cloud services for over 148 million small businesses worldwide.
"Parallels has a history of innovation and attracting top talent. Michael, David and Jesper have proven track records and are huge additional assets for our company and leadership team," said Parallels CEO Birger Steen. "Their appointment is the latest in a series of steps that we are taking to further strengthen our strategic execution and accelerate growth on a worldwide scale."
CTO Michael Toutonghi will serve Parallels as its technical visionary and evangelist, driving alignment across the entire hosting and cloud automation product lines and guiding engineering efforts throughout the company. He will focus on strengthening Parallels Automation position as the platform of choice for hosting and cloud service providers, while identifying next-generation capabilities for customers and partners. He will work closely with the CEO, SVP of Engineering, board of directors and executives across the company to ensure technical strategy aligns with Parallels' broader vision and customer requirements. Toutonghi is inventor or co-inventor of 19 issued patents and brings a deep technology background to Parallels. He is one of a select group of only 22 Technical Fellows at Microsoft Corporation who are recognized as being instrumental in developing and driving technical strategies for Microsoft and the technology industry.
CFO David Arkley joins Parallels' leadership team with a seasoned background as an insightful financial expert and advisor. He will be a key contributor for shaping the company's future direction as it continues its growth trajectory. He brings more than 20 years of experience in financial services and strategy, most recently in a senior financial role with Intron, Inc., the leading provider of energy and water resource management solutions for nearly 8,000 utilities in 130 countries around the world. Arkley served in a variety of roles within Itron, including as CFO of Itron North America, where he was critical in positioning the domestic business to grow to $1 billion plus in revenue, and as vice president of mergers and acquisitions, where he led the $1.7 billion acquisition of Actaris Metering Systems.
In addition to the two C-level executives, Jesper Frederiksen also joined Parallels in November as VP and GM of EUNA. Frederiksen will provide leadership and oversight of all sales activities across in Europe and North Africa. Jesper was most recently with Symantec, where he was vice president of EMEA for the Symantec cloud business. He previously held positions at Google, Postini, Net IQ, VERITAS Software and KVS.
About Parallels
Parallels is a global leader in hosting and cloud services enablement and desktop virtualisation. Founded in 1999, Parallels is a fast-growing company with more than 800 employees in North America, Europe and Asia. For more information, please visit www.parallels.com.
