MicroStrategy Global Head Of Sales Being Replaced And Board Is Strengthened
Summary
- We have explained that sales management needs to be improved for the MicroStrategy turnaround to work. US sales performance has trailed international results for many quarters now.
- Kevin Norlin will replace Mr. Rennyson as the Senior Executive Vice President, Worldwide Sales, effective as of April 3, 2018.
- Mr. Norlin brings financial services sales management experience from NCR and vice president and general manager, worldwide sales, operations and strategy experience from Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
- Financial and stock price performance was positive during his tenure with both companies. We suspect he will help fix the under performance in domestic sales and increase sales with financial services companies globally.
- That said, there could be potential for a restructuring in the sales group and perhaps volatility in sales performance near term, which could lead to better top line results later this year and next year.
MicroStrategy (NASDAQ:MSTR) added two new board members who bring valuable backgrounds and increase board diversity. Ms. Breya served as COO of Ionic Security, a data protection and control software provider; she served as chief information officer at Informatica (INFA) a big data infrastructure management and cloud solutions provider and partner to MicroStrategy; and she held senior marketing positions at Hewlett-Packard Company (HPE).
Mr. Rechan has served as CEO of Solace Corp., a smart data movement solutions company; president and CEO of Halogen Software (OTC:HGENF) which is a cloud-based talent management company and importantly, as vice president, sales, solutions and services from February 2008 to October 2011 of IBM Business Analytics (IBM). Prior to joining IBM through its largest acquisition, Mr. Rechan was the COO of Cognos a BI solution provider.
Executive marketing, data security, cloud technology, competitor business intelligence and analytics backgrounds from the number one analytics company in the world - IBM (some might argue for SAS Institute) will be highly valuable perspectives to have on the board.
Recent technology share weakness is likely tied to trade war fears, Amazon (AMZN) regulatory concerns, Facebook (FB) data breach/security concerns and Oracle cloud growth. Stay the course on MicroStrategy as expectations are low and the risk/reward is compelling. Buy the weakness. First quarter results are due around April 26th.
This article was written by
Analyst’s Disclosure: I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.
Seeking Alpha's Disclosure: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. Any views or opinions expressed above may not reflect those of Seeking Alpha as a whole. Seeking Alpha is not a licensed securities dealer, broker or US investment adviser or investment bank. Our analysts are third party authors that include both professional investors and individual investors who may not be licensed or certified by any institute or regulatory body.