Nuance Names Wes Hayden to Head New Enterprise Division
Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories CEO Wes Hayden joined Nuance Communications October 1 as president of the its new Enterprise Division. In this position, Hayden will be responsible for managing strategy operations, marketing, professional services, and engineering for Nuance’s enterprise products and solutions.
Hayden joins Nuance at a time when the company has shifted its emphasis from point technologies to integrated enterprise solutions that use speech and are targeted at specific markets.
"Nuance created a talent ensemble and solutions portfolio that has the potential to serve the world’s consumers," Hayden says. "Nuance’s vision for speech in the enterprise is more exciting today than ever before and is embodied in the myriad breakthroughs it has recently brought to customers and partners. I am honored to lead this organization, eager to work directly with our customers and partners, embrace Nuance’s global agenda, and lead the team to a dynamic, promising future."
Hayden joined Genesys in 1999 as its senior vice president for the Americas. Prior to that, he was vice president of the Central U.S. region at Informix Software, a provider of database management systems that was acquired by IBM in 2001, and held sales positions at Sun Microsystems, Digital Equipment, and Applied Data Research.
"Wes will be a tremendous asset to Nuance. His leadership, vision, track record, and industry expertise make him an ideal leader for our ambitious agenda," Paul Ricci, chairman and CEO of Nuance, said in a statement. "Wes is widely respected as an executive with solid enterprise-oriented solution skills and the ability to foster strong customer relationships. With this appointment, we add additional strength to our leadership team and enter 2008 with a keen focus on aggressive growth and satisfying demand for Nuance solutions around the world."
To replace Hayden, Genesys promoted Paul Segre, it chief operating officer, to president and CEO. Segre joined Genesys in 2002 as chief technology officer; before that, he was vice president and general manager of Alcatel’s Wireline Access business unit. Previously, he was vice president and general manager of the Advanced Products Division at DSC and held senior management positions at AT&T in network and workforce management.
"Paul Segre is the natural choice to take Genesys to the next level. His leadership skills and experience with Genesys’ people and technology, its partners, and customers will benefit the entire organization," Hubert de Pesquidoux, president of Alcatel-Lucent’s Enterprise Business Group, said in a statement.
As a result of Hayden’s move, Genesys and Nuance expect to expand existing partnerships, through which they jointly sell and implement customer service and speech solutions.
"Genesys is just beginning to realize its full potential," Segre said. "Our core markets remain very healthy, with Genesys expanding at more than twice the market growth rate. And we are gaining incredible traction for our strategy of creating a unified platform for delivering rich customer experiences via the Web, voice, or video across any device."
NEW PRESIDENT/CEO JOINS CALLMINER
Speech analytics provider CallMiner has named Terry Leahy, former CEO of data protection technology developer Revivio, as its new president and CEO, replacing Jeff Gallino, who will stay on as the company’s chairman and chief technology officer. CallMiner says it made these changes to support its continued commitment to and success in the rapidly evolving speech analytics arena.
Previously, Leahy served as CEO at Stream International, a software reseller and technical support provider, and as founder, chairman, and CEO of Modus, a global supply chain services provider.
"After five years of consistent growth in an emerging market, we have seen our prospects explode along with the recent rapid expansion in the speech analytics industry. These changes create great opportunities for us," Gallino said in a statement.
"This is a pivotal time in CallMiner’s development, and my joining as president and CEO will allow [Gallino] to focus his energies squarely on evolving CallMiner’s technology to help the company not only further solidify its leadership in the speech analytics arena, but also enable it to grow into other areas," Leahy said.