CA Inc. is shuffling its executive ranks, naming technology strategist Mark Barrenechea as its new chief technology officer (CTO).
Barrenechea joined CA in 2003 after holding several executive positions at Oracle Corp. He initially served as CA's head of product development before moving last year to the newly created position of executive vice president of technology strategy and chief technology architect.
Barrenechea has been a highly visible spokesman for CA, commenting often on industry trends and CA's business strategy. When CA sold its Ingres database technology to Ingres Corp., a newly formed venture created to promote the open-source database software, CA named Barrenechea to be its representative on Ingres Corp.'s board.
As CA's CTO, Barrenechea will continue reporting directly to CA Chief Executive Officer (CEO) John Swainson, and will remain in charge of CA's technology strategy and product architecture. His duties will also include supervising a research group that focuses on emerging technologies, such as RFID (radio frequency identification), and coordinates with academic researchers.
Meanwhile, CA's former CTO, Yogesh Gupta, is now CA's senior vice president of business development. Gupta had held the CTO job at CA for five years. He will join CA's acquisitions team and help evaluate the assets potential targets would bring to CA's products portfolio, the company said. CA estimates that it has spent US$1.6 billion on the 10 acquisitions it has made in the past 18 months.
CA, in Islandia, New York, is reforming after an accounting scandal decimated its management team and led to criminal charges against several of its erstwhile top executives. The company struck a deferred prosecution agreement with investigators that will allow it to avoid prosecution if it lives up to an assortment of agreements to strengthen its governance and internal controls.
Since taking over as CA's CEO early last year, Swainson has been tweaking CA's management line-up and reorganizing its internal operations in an effort to streamline the company's vast product portfolio and restore its growth.
