Open source software solutions provider Red Hat has appointed Matt Hicks as president and chief executive officer.
In a statement, the IBM-owned company says Hicks, who previously served as Red Hat’s executive vice-president of products and technologies, succeeds Paul Cormier, who will serve as chairman of Red Hat.
Known as a hands-on leader within Red Hat, the company says Hicks joined the open source provider in 2006 as a developer on the IT team.
It says he quickly rose via leadership positions across the organisation, helping Red Hat solidify itself as the open hybrid cloud technology leader.
Most notably, says Red Hat, Hicks was a foundational member of the engineering team that developed Red Hat OpenShift, which has grown into the backbone for hybrid cloud deployments across industries, now serving as the industry’s leading enterprise Kubernetes platform.
According to Red Hat, he has remained at the vanguard of hybrid cloud computing and Red Hat’s product strategy since then.
It adds that Cormier, who was named president and CEO in 2020, has a 21-year tenure at Red Hat and during that time he has driven much of the company’s open hybrid cloud strategy, playing an instrumental role in the expansion of Red Hat’s portfolio to a full, modern IT stack based on open source innovation.
His efforts to transform Red Hat Linux from a freely downloadable operating system, to a subscription model with Red Hat Enterprise Linux, was a pivotal moment, says the company.
“When I first joined Red Hat, I was passionate about open source and our mission, and I wanted to be a part of that,” says Hicks.
“I am humbled and energised to be stepping into this role at this moment. There has never been a more exciting time to be in our industry and the opportunity in front of Red Hat is vast. I’m ready to roll up my sleeves and prove that open source technology truly can unlock the world’s potential.”
Says Cormier: “Matt is the exemplification of a true Red Hatter and is absolutely the right person to step into this role. His experience across different parts of our business has given him depth and breadth of knowledge about how we can best work together to scale and remain the open hybrid cloud leader.
“He understands our product strategy and the direction the industry is moving in a way that’s second to none. As chairman, I’m excited to get to work with our customers, partners and Matt in new ways. My focus moving forward will be on helping customers drive innovation forward with a hybrid cloud platform built on open source technology.
“Open source technology has won the innovation debates and whatever the future looks like, it’s going to be built on open source technology and Red Hat will be there.”
Arvind Krishna, chairman and CEO of IBM, comments: “Red Hat serves as the foundation of so many clients’ technology strategies because of its open source and hybrid cloud capabilities. Matt’s deep experience and technical knowledge of Red Hat’s entire portfolio makes him the ideal leader as Red Hat continues to grow and to develop innovative, industry-leading software.”
Share