15th December 2011

OpenText Appoints New President And CEO

Open TextOpen TextTM Corporation has announced that Mark Barrenechea has been named President and Chief Executive Officer of Open Text Corporation as of January 2, 2012. Current President and Chief Executive Officer John Shackleton will retire from his executive role and from the OpenText board of directors as of January 2, 2012.

With more than 20 years of executive management and leadership experience in the high-tech industry, Mr. Barrenechea was named to the Rackable Systems board of directors in 2006 and served as Rackable’s President and CEO. In that role, he led the acquisition of Silicon Graphics, Inc. (NASDAQ: SGI) and was appointed President and CEO of SGI in May 2009, serving through December 2011.

Previously, Mr. Barrenechea served as Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for Computer Associates. Prior to this, he served as Senior Vice President of Applications Development at Oracle Corporation and was part of the executive management committee, managing a multi-thousand person global team and helping deliver release 11i of Oracle Applications.

Mark Barrenechea is 46 years old and in May 2011 the San Francisco Business Times named him 2011 Best Large Company CEO in recognition of his leadership and company growth. Mr. Barrenechea will also serve on the Open Text Corporation board of directors, and will relocate to Waterloo, Ontario.

John Shackleton and the board of directors have been actively working on a succession plan to fulfill the role of President and CEO upon his retirement.  Mr. Shackleton will take on a consulting role through the end of the fiscal year assisting Mr. Barrenechea with the transition.

“On behalf of everyone at Open Text, I would like to express how instrumental John has been in growing the company since he came on board as President in 1998, and Chief Executive Officer in 2005,” said Tom Jenkins, Executive Chairman of the Board and Chief Strategy Officer. “John’s achievements during his 13 years as an executive at Open Text are remarkable.  During that time, he guided the company as we grew from less than $100 million in revenue to more than $1 billion.”

“John’s leadership was demonstrated many times as he guided the company through both challenging times as well as some of the most exciting moments in our company’s history.  Many of us at Open Text have benefited from John’s professionalism and the insights he brought with him every day while achieving complex tasks such as integrating entire companies and product lines,” said Jenkins. “We wish him the greatest happiness in his retirement.”

“During my tenure at Open Text, I have had the privilege of working with some incredibly talented people, not only with our employees but customers, partners and the investment community as well. I look forward to watching the company progress under Mark’s leadership for many years to come.” said Mr. Shackleton.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 15th, 2011 at 8:41 am and is filed under Business News, National News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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