Industry Veteran Don Foster Named Panzura’s Chief Customer Officer in Strategic Move
Panzura, LLC (“Panzura”), a leading provider of hybrid multi-cloud data management solutions, has appointed Don Foster, an industry veteran with more than 20 years of experience, to its newly created role of chief customer officer (CCO). Don will be responsible for operationalizing a seamless customer journey built on customer value across all functions, with a particular focus on the unique needs of Panzura’s enterprise-level customers.
Don’s appointment — and the creation of the CCO role — marks a significant milestone and catalyst in Panzura’s plans for record growth. As the volume of unstructured data held by customers continues to grow, there is a critical need for intelligent end-to-end data management that facilitates access and collaboration in a secure and controlled way.
“We’re investing in a radical reboot in customer experience. Bringing Don into the role of chief customer officer is pivotal for our mission to provide an unparalleled customer experience, especially at a time when the focus on enterprise customers is universally acknowledged, yet scarcely acted upon,” noted Dan Waldschmidt, Panzura’s CEO. “Our approach is holistic; we’re committed to guiding our customers through an end-to-end journey — from building and designing bespoke solutions to maintaining them with regular updates and health checks. We’re not just talking about enhancing customer success, we’re actively laying the groundwork for a revolution in how cloud data management is perceived and executed at the enterprise level.”
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Don’s recent role as Panzura’s vice president of global technical services, where he led the Sales Engineering team to over 100% year-over-year growth for two consecutive quarters, showcases his ability to drive significant business results. Don brings decades worth of experience, spanning functions including engineering, product management, marketing, and field and sales enablement, including 20 years at Commvault where he led the Global Productivity team. His expertise in articulating technology value into business outcomes, coupled with his passion for cultivating a culture of innovation and leadership, positions him perfectly to spearhead customer experience initiatives at Panzura.
“Panzura is a customer-centric organization and I will fully focus my lens on customer outcomes, value, and experiences,” said Don. “Panzura has built a team that I consider to be the right leadership with the right experience to propel us to being the undisputed first choice in data management for the enterprise. I look forward to delivering on customer success, not just as a function, but as a company-wide strategy.”
The appointment follows a record year for Panzura, which was recognized in the Gartner® Storage and Data Protection Hype Cycle™, 2023, and named in DCIG’s 2024 “Top Five Enterprise Cloud-Based NAS Consolidation Solutions” report. The company has also launched Panzura Edge, a scalable, enterprise-grade file-sharing solution that allows organizations to create private workspaces and securely share and update files within Panzura’s Cloud File System (CloudFS).
Following Panzura’s re-founding in 2020, the company has undergone a cultural shift and brought seven new products to market, with one more to be released in the coming weeks. Within three years, it achieved a record-breaking rise in annual recurring revenue of 485% and was growing at four times the rate of its nearest competitors. It has won industry-leading awards including the Inc. 5000 list of America’s Fastest-Growing Companies in 2022 and 2023, and Inc. Best Workplaces for 2022 and 2023.
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