Max McLaren (Red Hat)
Red Hat Australia and New Zealand’s (A/NZ) long-serving leader Max McLaren will retire from the technology industry, paving way for a new local boss.
McLaren has led Red Hat in the role of regional vice president and general manager since 2005, a total of 17 years.
When contacted by ARN, Red Hat declined to comment. However, the leadership change was made public on LinkedIn.
McLaren began his IT career in 1992 at Lotus in London, where he spent eight years. He subsequently joined IBM as a regional manager for Lotus sales in Southeast Asia, based in Singapore.
He moved to IBM A/NZ in 2003 overseeing Lotus sales before moving to manage Big Blue’s small-to-medium-sized business (SMB) unit. After almost five years with IBM, he joined Red Hat, an open-source Linux operating system and IBM partner.
Two years ago, IBM announced plans to acquire Red Hat in a blockbuster US$34 billion deal designed to bolster the tech giant's hybrid cloud capabilities.
Following the deal’s completion, the two companies went on to integrate. Meanwhile, globally Red Hat named Matt Hicks as its president and chief executive officer, succeeding Paul Cormier who shifted into the chairman’s post.
Hicks previously served as Red Hat’s executive vice president of products and technologies, joining the company in 2006 as a developer in its IT team.
14/12/2022: ARN has updated the article to remove the reference to Martin Zierer which previously incorrectly referred to him as taking over from Max McLaren.
