Two top names for Hitachi Vantara

Hitachi

Vantara, the technology solutions unit of Hitachi Ltd, has taken on former GE digital chief operating officer Brad Surak, and former IBM Watson Data Platform vice-president John Murphy, as it revs up its industrial Internet of Thing (IoT) development.

The announcement comes a few days after the company launched a “fully enhanced Lumada IoT platform,” as well as its Hitachi IoT appliance, Hitachi enterprise cloud and Hitachi smart data centre, during its NEXT user conference.

Lumada is an open core platform that allows solutions to be built using a combination of open source and proprietary technologies. According to the company, the platform is designed to work in a variety of IoT domains including industrial, manufacturing, energy and government.

Before GE, Mr Surak was the general manager of mobile analytic applications and chief operating officer of the business analytics solutions unit of SAP. He also held executive positions at Business Objects, Cambridge Technology Partners, and Ernst & Young.

As chief product and strategy officer at Hitachi Vantara, Mr Surak will drive and implement the company’s product and technology road map.

Mr Murphy joins Hitachi Vantara from IBM, where he most recently led product development and product management for the IBM Watson Data Platform. He also held key leadership roles in its data analytics and enterprise content management businesses.

Prior to IBM, Mr Murphy held leadership roles in a number of software organisations.

At Hitachi, he will report to the chief solutions and services officer Bobby Soni, and will lead unified offerings management for the company, supporting the development of its digital solutions and services portfolio and business strategy.

Hitachi Vantara was launched by Hitachi Ltd in September 2017, to unite the operations, technologies, intellectual property and human capital of Hitachi Data Systems, Hitachi Insight Group and Pentaho into a single entity focused on digital innovation.

“Hitachi Vantara is building a world-class executive team that possesses deep domain expertise in every corner of our portfolio — from data infrastructure and software, to cloud and analytics, to IoT and digital industrial solutions,” said Brian Householder, president and chief operating officer at Hitachi Vantara.

“Hitachi is boldly positioning itself to deliver the services and solutions that modern data-driven enterprises are hungry for,” said Mr Murphy.