Longtime Juniper staffer Michael Zutenis has been appointed as Hitachi Data Systems APAC distribution and VAR lead as the vendor seeks to grow and evolve its partner business across the region.

Zutenis, who has been with Juniper since 2007 most recently as area partner director for Australia and New Zealand, will drive the strategy for distributors and TrueNorth partners in the region, with a focus on the growth and evolution of indirect business.

Choo-Siang Lee, Hitachi Data Systems Asia Pacific senior director of partner and alliances, says the vendor is seeing significant market opportunities in areas such as midrange enterprise and object storage, as well as content intelligence and agile data center infrastructure.

“Our investments continue in our distribution and partner network to collaborate on new solution offerings,” Lee says.

Zutenis says the opportunity for partners has never been better to capitalise on the growing investment in digital transformation.

“Companies are seeking partners that can deliver true value add and business outcomes,” Zutenis says.

“We are committed to help partners leverage Hitachi Data Systems resources more consistently and profitability with a clear strategy for Asia Pacific,” he says.

Zutenis' previous channel experience also includes a stint as Nortel's channel manager. He started his career at Telstra where he held a range of engineering positions during his eight years with the company.

Zutenis' appointment follows last month's bolstering of HDS' Australia and New Zealand channel team, which saw Tim Moodie appointed ANZ channel marketing manager, Ed Daven promoted to ANZ distribution manager, Matt Wilson promoted to strategic partner manager for NSW and New Zealand and Mark Edwards focused on developing strategic IoT solutions and partnerships in his new role in alliance and cloud service provider partner management.