Red Hat names Matt Hicks as president and CEO

13 Jul 2022

Matt Hicks. Image: Red Hat

Hicks joined Red Hat in 2006 and was responsible for the company’s product strategy and engineering in his previous role.

IBM subsidiary Red Hat has appointed former head of products and technologies Matt Hicks as its new president and CEO, succeeding Paul Cormier.

Hicks joined Red Hat in 2006 as a developer on the IT team and quickly rose through leadership positions across the organisation. He was foundational member of the engineering team that developed Red Hat OpenShift, which has grown into the backbone for hybrid cloud deployments.

As executive VP of products and technologies, Hicks was responsible for the entirety of Red Hat’s product strategy and engineering. Under his leadership, Red Hat expanded to help customers build, deploy and manage any application anywhere, such as on-premises environments, multiple clouds and the edge.

“When I first joined Red Hat, I was passionate about open source and our mission, and I wanted to be a part of that,” Hicks said. “I am humbled and energised to be stepping into this role at this moment.

“There has never been a more exciting time to be in our industry and the opportunity in front of Red Hat is vast. I’m ready to roll up my sleeves and prove that open-source technology truly can unlock the world’s potential.”

Cormier, who has served as president and CEO since April 2020, will now be the company chair. He has been with Red Hat since 2001 and has played an instrumental role in the expansion of its portfolio.

Speaking about Hicks’ appointment, Cormier said: “Matt is the exemplification of a true Red Hatter and is absolutely the right person to step into this role. His experience across different parts of our business has given him depth and breadth of knowledge about how we can best work together to scale and remain the open hybrid cloud leader.”

IBM acquired Linux software giant Red Hat for $34bn in 2018 and the business has continued to grow since then. In IBM’s first quarter of 2022, Red Hat’s revenue was up 18pc for its open-source software services.

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Leigh Mc Gowran is a journalist with Silicon Republic

editorial@siliconrepublic.com