My name is Thor Culverhouse and on July 1 was appointed CEO of Skytap. While this is my first contribution to the Skytap Blog, I’m a regular reader and I’m anxious to learn more about the Skytap community. Skytap already has over 250 enterprise and mid-market customers, and the Skytap Blog is a helpful forum for sharing insights among members of the Skytap community, so I plan to become a regular contributor.
Skytap has a tremendous market opportunity in enterprise cloud computing and its recent milestones demonstrate that the company has the right combination of technology and talent to accelerate its growth. The company’s vision for empowering development and test teams through intuitive cloud services directly addresses some of today’s biggest challenges in building and deploying new software.
Skytap Cloud gives enterprise customers the best of what cloud computing can offer together with our advanced automation, intuitive self-service and full visibility and control, enabling customers to quickly and easily use cloud computing to accelerate their businesses. Although I’ve only been on board a few weeks, I’m enjoying working with the Skytap team to build on the company’s track record of success to drive greater adoption of our hybrid cloud solution.
As Skytap’s Chief Executive Officer, I’m responsible for overall company strategy and operational execution. I’ve prepared for this role my entire career. Prior to joining Skytap, I was the CEO of Stratavia, where I transformed the company from an early stage managed services business to a software license business focused on data center automation and private cloud deployments. After Stratavia’s acquisition by HP in 2010, I was VP Sales, Global Accounts for HP Software and Solutions, where I led a team of 200 sales professionals and was responsible for revenue generation of HP’s largest software customers. Last year, I founded willbeHired, a social recruitment platform for enterprises. I have also served in leadership roles at companies, including IBM, Informix, and Tektronix.
I love living in the Pacific Northwest, and have a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Washington State University and an M.B.A. from the University of Portland. Although I’m spending most of my first few months with Skytap at our corporate headquarters in Seattle working closely with the talented workforce that has made Skytap the leading provider of self-service cloud automation solutions, I’ll increasingly be spending more time with customers, analysts, press, and other members of the industry and will share my insights on the Skytap Blog—so I hope you’ll join me in subscribing.