Sungard Availability Services ®  (Sungard AS), a leading provider of information availability through managed IT, cloud and recovery services, has appointed Chris Huggett as its Senior Vice President, Sales for EMEA & India. Chris will lead the European sales team, covering markets including the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Poland and Sweden.  Chris will also lead Sungard AS’ sales team in India.

Chris Huggett’s appointment comes at an important juncture for Sungard AS, as it increases its reach and capabilities within the EMEA region, including the expansion of its Channel Partner Programme into EMEA and significant investments in its Workplace Recovery Facilities across the U.K. and Europe. Sungard AS has refreshed several workplace recovery sites including Mansell Street and Southwark Bridge, as well as expanding sites overseas in Luxembourg, France and Dublin. The availability expert has also grown its offering to include expanded cloud, production and recovery solutions that will enable a new generation of customers to benefit from the company’s legacy of more than 40 years in the availability arena.  

Chris brings with him more than 20 years of sales, marketing and leadership experience, having worked with several leading technology firms including Hewlett Packard (HP), Vodafone, Cisco Systems and Dell.  Chris has developed wide-ranging experiences working in the UK and international markets, across sales, marketing, and account-management.  He has a proven track record as a senior sales leader and for re-engineering go-to-market (GTM) strategies.

Most recently, Chris served as Managing Director, Daisy Corporate Services, where he was tasked with the integration of four different business units.  He worked to create a single go-to-market structure from these multiple acquisitions. Harnessing his entrepreneurial experience, Chris succeeded in creating one single governance model, including a unified sales organization, portfolio improvements, and a unified sales methodology.  Previously, Chris spent a number of years at HP, where he led a specialist global account team for HP Networking, including OEM sales.

Commenting on the appointment, Alfred Binford, Executive Vice President, Worldwide Sales and Solutions, Sungard Availability Services said: “Throughout his career, Chris has established himself as a commercially astute sales leader and a pragmatic innovator with an entrepreneurial instinct that has seen him develop new and innovative ideas within large corporations. I am very excited to welcome Chris to the leadership team at Sungard AS.”

About his appointment Chris commented: “I’m delighted to be joining Sungard AS at such an exciting time for the company. The business has four decades as an innovative and leading provider of resilient production and disaster recovery services, while continually striving to meet its customers’ ever-changing needs. Sungard AS is now ideally placed to make a significant impact across an expanding EMEA market. I look forward to leading my team to even greater successes as part of this process.”