Computer company Dell has appointed John Swainson as its president, software group, effective 5 March 2012.
Swainson will report to Dell chairman and CEO Michael Dell.
“John is an outstanding leader with an unparallelled record of achievement,” said Dell. “He brings to Dell extensive experience in leading and growing software businesses, unique expertise in managing complex software organisations, and a passion for listening to and serving customers. I look forward to working with John as he expands our enterprise solutions and builds on our software capabilities.”
Most recently, Swainson was senior adviser to Silver Lake, a global private equity firm. Prior to Silver Lake, he was CEO and director of CA, Inc. from early 2005 through 2009. Under his leadership at CA, the company increased revenue, operating margins and customer satisfaction.
Prior to CA, Swainson worked for IBM Corp for more than 26 years, holding various management positions in the US and Canada, including seven years as general manager of the Application Integration Middleware Division, a business he founded in 1997.
During that period, he and his team developed the WebSphere family of middleware products and the Eclipse open source tools project. He also led the IBM worldwide software sales organisation, and held numerous senior leadership roles in engineering, marketing and sales management.
Swainson holds a bachelor’s degree in engineering from the University of British Columbia, Canada.
