Two new C-suite bods kiss the Scality ring as IPO rumours gather

Object storage upstart Scality has hired two C-level execs and more senior hires are on the way.

Ewan Menard, who was DataDirect Networks’ chief operating officer (COO) up to July last year, becomes Scality’s COO, reporting to CEO Jérôme Lecat. Before DDN he was with HP. He is object storage-aware, DDN having its own object storage products such as its Web Object Scaler.

Philippe Mechanick becomes Scality’s first chief financial officer and “will focus on enhancing Scality’s financial infrastructure as the company builds a foundation for future growth.” He has experience at several companies, including Unisys and Ernst & Young.

Menard’s canned quote said: “Key to my decision to join Scality is the company’s technical leadership, as well as the values, culture and experience of Scality’s founding team. Thanks to Scality, Object Storage is now mainstream, rather than a niche, archival product for cold storage. I am also attracted by Scality’s customer satisfaction track record, as the Scality Ring already supports more than a hundred million end-users.”

One hundred million end-users sounds impressive.

Lecat said the two experienced execs “join us at a key inflection point for the company. As object storage enters the mainstream, we’re putting in place the leadership team to support accelerated growth. Erwan brings us proven revenue and strategic leadership skills and Philippe brings a broad range of skills in financial operations.”

In El Reg's view, this smacks of preparation for a potential IPO. With Verizon building an HDS-based object storage in the cloud offering it seems that object storage is crossing the chasm and starting to become mainstream. This year could be an eventful one, as more object storage technology gets deployed and developed.

Our expectation is that Scality could be thinking about a possible IPO in 2016. Scality says we could hear more about its technology and company developments at the Next Generation Object Storage Summit in Los Angeles on 4 and 5 March. ®