SUSE Expands Office of the CTO, Names Global Chief Technology Officer

SUSE announced Brent Schroeder has been named global chief technology officer to lead SUSE’s Office of the CTO. He replaces former CTO Thomas Di Giacomo, who is now president of Engineering, Product and Innovation for SUSE. Most recently CTO Americas for SUSE, Schroeder will continue to report to Di Giacomo. In addition, Gerald Pfeifer, formerly SUSE vice president of Products and Technology Programs, is joining SUSE’s Office of the CTO as EMEA-based CTO.

“As SUSE pursues its vision of powering digital transformation with agile open source solutions that enable enterprises to continually innovate, compete and grow, we are broadening and deepening our engagement with the industry and with partners, customers and open source communities,” Di Giacomo said. “Our Office of the CTO leads this strategic effort. Brent is uniquely positioned to identify, evaluate and lead in relevant technology trends to meet increasing global demand for open source software-defined infrastructure and application delivery solutions.”

As CTO, Schroeder is also responsible for shaping SUSE’s technology and portfolio strategy in support of emerging use cases in areas such as hybrid cloud, IoT and edge, hyperconvergence, and AI/ML. He brings to SUSE more than 25 years of technology innovation and development experience in the IT industry. Prior to SUSE, Schroeder was executive director and senior distinguished engineer of the Office of the CTO at Quest Software (formerly Dell Software Group). He also led the Dell Office of the CTO for the Enterprise Software organization. Schroeder previously served as director of Enterprise Solutions at Dell, along with holding engineering management positions at NCR, HP and Compaq. He received bachelor’s degrees in computer science and business management from Iowa State University.

Schroeder said, “The Office of the CTO has been a key part of SUSE’s success in behalf of our customers and industry initiatives. As we navigate and select from the many difference-making technologies affecting the enterprise, I anticipate an even greater focus on driving digital transformation with computing solutions that span the edge to the core data center to the cloud.”

Based in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region, Pfeifer is charged with leading strategic dialogue with customers, partners and open source communities there and globally. He was previously responsible for the creation and progression of SUSE’s broad portfolio of open source enterprise software solutions. Pfeifer has been contributing to free and open source software for more than 20 years.