Skype Appoints Lead Roles for Technology and Strategy
December 10, 2008
LUXEMBOURG, December 10, 2008 — Skype today announced the appointment of Daniel Berg as Chief Technology Officer and Christopher S. Dean as Chief Strategy Officer. Both roles are newly-created and will report into Skype President, Josh Silverman.
As Chief Technology Officer, Daniel Berg is charged with driving and developing Skype’s full range of technologies and products, and enhancing and leveraging the architectural vision of other technology teams. He will have responsibility for growing and maintaining a global research and development team of more than 300 staff, fostering excellence in both execution and innovation. He assumes his role on January 1, 2009.
Christopher S. Dean joins Skype as Chief Strategy Officer, focused on driving Skype’s strategic development. His team will lead global business and corporate development, strategic planning and an incubation function tasked with generating new ideas and developing projects which support Skype’s technology vision and long-term corporate goals. He assumes his role effective immediately.
“The appointment of these pivotal roles for technology and strategy, at a time when many technology companies are cutting back on resources, demonstrates Skype’s commitment to driving forward a vision of technological innovation coupled with the creation of a world-class leadership team,” said Josh Silverman, Skype President. “With the team in place, we are better-placed to scale and develop with the rapid growth and potential of the business, and respond swiftly and dynamically to new opportunities as they arise.”
Mr Berg joins Skype from Sun Microsystems, following 15 years working with technology and exploring new ways to exploit its benefits. Most recently, he was Chief Technology Officer for Sun's Global Sales and Services Division and Vice President of Systems Engineering for Sun's Emerging Markets Region (India, China, Russia, Middle East, Africa and Latin America), roles in which he led the technical strategy and direction of the organization. He also received the title of Distinguished Engineer at Sun, in recognition of his work in multithreading, concurrent programming and Java. A best-selling author, he has written a number of books, including Advanced Techniques for Java Developers and Dot-Com & Beyond: Breakthrough Internet Based Architecture & Methodologies. Prior to Sun, he worked for IBM and Honeywell.
Mr Dean brings over 20 years of experience in the technology industry, specializing in business and corporate development, strategy consulting and start-ups. Most recently he was co-founder of Texada Capital, an investment management firm. Prior to Texada, he spent three and a half years as Senior Vice President of Marketing and Business Development at FaceTime Communications, a leading vendor of security, management and control solutions for instant messaging within the enterprise. Earlier in his career he was Senior Vice President of Business Development at Epoch Partners, EVP eCommerce Services at smartage.com, VP of Marketing at Worlds, Inc. and a Senior Consultant at Regis Mckenna, Inc. He holds a BA in Economics from Vassar College and a MBA from Kellogg Graduate School of Management.
Skype also recently appointed Anne Gillespie as the new Head of Human Resources. Anne spent much of her career with major technology corporations, including Compaq and HP. Prior to joining Skype, she led HR for all of HP’s Global Functions in EMEA. Prior to that, she worked for HP in U.S. Corporate Headquarters supporting the Global Marketing organization and then moved to Switzerland to support Global Operations and IT as HR Director for Europe, Middle East and Africa. Anne holds an MSc in Human Resource Management from Sheffield University and is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (FCIPD). She assumed her role on November 10, 2008 and reports into Skype President, Josh Silverman.
About Skype
Founded in 2003, Skype is revolutionizing the way people communicate around the world. Skype has more than 370 million registered users globally who use Skype software to communicate for free through voice and video calls as well as instant messages. Skype generates revenue through its premium offerings, such as calls made to and from landlines and mobiles, voicemail, call forwarding, and SMS. Skype is used in almost every country on Earth, and people have made more than 100 billion minutes worth of free Skype-to-Skype calls. Conversations over Skype can take place on computers, mobile devices and Skype Certified™ hardware. Skype certifies and sells hundreds of hardware products from more than 50 partners, and works with hundreds of third-party developers who have created plug-ins to extend Skype’s functionality.
Skype is an eBay company (NASDAQ: EBAY). Learn more and download Skype at www.skype.com.
Access to a broadband Internet connection is required. Skype is not a replacement for your traditional telephone service and can not be used for emergency calling.
Skype, associated trade marks and logos and the “S” symbol are trade marks of Skype Limited.
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