[Info-vax] New CEO of VMS Software

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 1/4/2024 9:00 AM, Simon Clubley wrote:
> On 2024-01-03, Slo <slovuj at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Darya will assume the role of CEO in June 2024. She joined VMS
>> Software as a technical writer and OpenVMS instructor in 2017 and
>> has since held key leadership positions in software and web
>> development, documentation, the Community Program and Marketing.
>> Darya brings extensive expertise in OpenVMS and the OpenVMS
>> ecosystem, coupled with deep commitment to shaping the platform's
>> long-term trajectory. >
> This move does not give me a good feeling.
> 
> She does not seem like a good fit for a CEO of a company providing
> the types of mission-critical services that companies running VMS
> rely on.
> 
> Even ignoring all the touchy-feeling stuff in her bio, someone who
> has "successfully managed teams in documentation, marketing, web
> development, and DevOps" as her main achievement does not seem to
> be a good match for the needs of VMS users.

A CEO has to have managerial experience for obvious reasons. People
do not move directly from individual contributor to CEO.

She does not have an engineering background. But CEO's for tech
companies not having an engineering background is not unusual.

She has experience with the development process and the engineering
teams from her devops work.

She has experience with customers from marketing and sales work.

She seems more focused on new ways (CI/CD, web etc.) than
how DEC did things 40 years ago.

She was working on the CL program, which I think turned out
very good for VSI - I suspect a lot of the bug reports come
from CL users.

Based on VSI web page and LinkedIn profile I think it looks
as a good choice.

> Where were all the other candidates for the job, and why was she
> considered to be the best one for the job ? Would no-one else
> look at taking the job for some reason ?

They have had plenty of time to look for and evaluate candidates.

We will probably never know who was interested and exactly what
made Johan Gedda pick her.

But I suspect that some of the managers within engineering was
not interested because they prefer EVE/LSE/VSCode over Excel.
That is quite common, so probably also in VSI.

> Also, is her Russian background going to be a problem for the
> US governement ? I'm not saying it is an issue in real life, I am just
> asking how some people might react. For example, look at all the crap
> the Sailfish OS people have to deal with in this area...

I suspect that she will be presented as "born in Russia" and
"living and working in Copenhagen".

Denmark is a member of NATO and EU, close ally to the US etc..

Arne