Red Hat announced a new CEO last month when it promoted 16-year veteran Matt Hicks, who’s been on the job for several weeks now. His predecessor, Paul Cormier, stepped down to move into the chairman role.
It’s never easy making a transition like this, but Hicks has Cormier, his longtime mentor, to lean on as he takes the Red Hat reins. In his new role, Hicks has to walk the line between reassuring customers and employees that there will be stability in the company’s leadership while moving it forward and putting his own mark on things.
For the most part, Hicks said he will continue on the same path as Cormier. IBM has allowed Red Hat to be independent for the most part since purchasing it for $34 billion in 2018. IBM sells Red Hat services to take advantage of its sales clout, but Red Hat has remained independent, with many partners besides IBM.
As Cormier told me about his relationship with IBM CEO Arvind Krishna in a May interview: “The way Arvind characterizes Red Hat is that IBM will be opinionated on Red Hat, but it can’t work the other way around. So what that means is IBM has completely standardized on Red Hat as the [company’s] hybrid platform,” Cormier said.
Under Cormier, Red Hat helped IBM return to growth after a long period of stagnation. Big Blue’s revenue was up 9% in its most recent earnings report last month. Red Hat grew 12% and has been a big contributor to IBM’s growth strategy
It’s up to Hicks to keep that going while taking Red Hat wherever it’s going to go next. I spoke to him recently about the transition to his new role and what it means for all parties involved, from customers and employees to parent company IBM.
Moving on up
Hicks worked his way up through the company in his 16 years, culminating in this promotion to CEO.
“I’ve really progressed up through Red Hat from the IT side and engineering,” he said. “I was involved in the foundational days of what we now know as OpenShift. And I’ve just loved every aspect of how Red Hat works and that we focus on the open source model. I think that it has always been a model I’ve been drawn to of how open source development works and the opportunity they’ve associated with that.”
He recognizes the responsibility of being next in line. “I’m really excited about the opportunity just to be able to guide Red Hat to that next phase. I’ve worked with Paul and Jim [Whitehurst] prior to that for a long time. So you know, it’s a humbling opportunity for me, and it’s something that at its core I really love.”
He also pointed out that Cormier is still around, just in a different role. “So the first thing, in Paul’s role as chairman, he’ll still be actively tied in on our strategy. Paul has phenomenal intuition, both for Red Hat and I think the industry. He’s still going to be running our strategic advisory board. He’s still going to be working with customers, and we both share a passion for the opportunity around open hybrid cloud,” he said.
Cormier told me in that May interview that IBM maintains a hands-off approach to Red Hat when it comes to strategy. “We still run our own strategy. We run where we’re going to go, and we never, ever, ever get pushback from IBM on that,” he said.
Hicks said he will stick with that approach. “What does this [change] mean for the strategy of the company? It’s really nice to authentically say that the strategy doesn’t change. … Nothing you have bet on when you invested in us, whether it’s with your career or your dollars, changes [with this leadership change],” he told me.
Putting his mark on things
Holger Mueller, an analyst at Constellation Research, said that promoting Hicks was a big move, and he sees a shift coming involving a focus on more products. “Hicks is even more product-centric [than Cormier was], and what customers and IBM need from Red Hat is more product than ever. Over time, Red Hat should focus on more R&D, and product focus will be important for all involved — Red Hat, IBM and, of course, customers,” Mueller told TechCrunch.
Hicks said the current approach was defined by Cormier and he doesn’t want to alter that too much as he takes over.
“I believe in this strategy, to be honest,” he said. “I’ve worked hand in hand with Paul helping to formulate and implement that strategy. So that’s one of the questions we get asked a lot, and we fall back to I think [the notion of the] open hybrid cloud as the growth engine for the company. It’s the opportunity.”
But as he looks ahead, he also sees new opportunities in edge computing. “The first area that we would definitely say is changing and growing quickly is just in the opportunity with hybrid cloud extending to the edge,” he said.
“When we say edge, this is really focused on what are these enterprise-critical workloads that run outside of the data center … with a tremendous increase in the number of applications built there,” he added. For starters, the company is looking at industries with big edge cases like telcos and automotive, especially as cars become increasingly connected.
Hicks acknowledged that his leadership style is a bit different from Cormier’s.
“Our styles differ a bit, and we probably both come a little more together in the middle where Paul has always had this core passion and I would say you always knew where you stood with Paul. He might be on the blunt side. But he brings engaged energy and drive. I loved that and it was inspiring to me. … I can be more on the patient side and diligent in the details and working through them,” he said. And after working with Cormier all these years, Hicks said their styles have merged a bit over time.
Hicks is still getting his feet wet as he takes over a role he’s been working toward his entire career. “It’s a little stunning to me still to get the CEO opportunity, but I’ve had just a really nice progression over 16 years to get that opportunity to how we run the business experience in every aspect of how we do it. So I’m looking forward to it.”
Disclaimer: The author has a family member who is an IBM employee but doesn’t work on anything related to Red Hat.
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