Pivotal Software Snags AWS Superstar

AWS general manager James Urquhart is jumping ship to platform-as-a-service developer (PaaS) Pivotal Software to become Director of Platform Architecture for the enterprise cloud computer vendor.

"James Urquhart is an OG in the PaaS world," said Richard Seroter, Pivotal's vice president of product marketing in a statement on Monday. "He's built software. He's sold software. He's worked with software partners."

Urquhart was previously general manager of AWS's Learning Services business, which developed software and a services platform for online and classroom learning applications used at AWS and other Amazon businesses. He also has decades of engineering executive experience working for the likes of Cisco and Dell.

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"I couldn’t be more excited about this, as Pivotal is leading the way in driving changes to the way Enterprise views software development, delivery, and operations," said Urquhart in a blog post on Medium on Monday. "I’m also excited about this role because it gets me back into customer-facing work. I’ve always loved the work that I’ve done with customers in my past roles that included pre- and post-sales, product management, and executive sponsor."

The San Francisco-based enterprise cloud computing vendor went public this year and currently has a market cap of $4.5 billion. Pivotal is a member of Dell Technologies with Dell owning a majority stake in the company. Pivotal Cloud Foundry is the company's open source, cloud-native platform that lets customers build and run applications on their own computing infrastructure or on solutions such as OpenStack, vSphere or AWS.

Urquhart will join Pivotal's CTO field organization that works with customers on their technology strategy and leveraging emerging innovations such as cloud-native apps and data-intensive systems.

"James has been a product management executive and knows what it means to deliver products based on customer need," said Seroter. "And thanks to his recent stint at AWS leading Learning Services engineering, he has valuable knowledge about continual education."

Prior to AWS, Urquhart was senior vice president of performance analytics at Soasta. He has also held roles such Director of Product, Cloud Management for Dell, as well as Cloud Programs and Communications Manager at Cisco, according to his LinkedIn profile.