New boss for Aruba as Steve Coad departs and Tony Smith takes on ANZ role

Aruba has a new South Pacific general manager, with Anthony Smith taking over the role as Steve Coad exits the business.

Coad has lead Aruba locally since 2012, leading the local business through the 2015 acquistion by Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

Smith, whose previous roles include director of HPE Server business unit, is charged with driving sales and growing Aruba's channel partnerships across Australia and New Zealand. He will also be responsible for growing the local Airheads community.

Steve Wood, Aruba vice president for Asia Pacific, says Smith has a strong track record workign with a number of successful technology businesses and his recent work at HPE has provided him with a more holistic understanding of how Aruba's solutiosn complement the broader HPE offering.

Smith, who will be based in Melbourne, says Aruba has maintained a strong reputation in the industry for delivering world-class enterprise mobility solutions, since its acquisition by HPE.

"Increasingly, savvy businesses are transitioning towards a digital workplace, and Aruba's mobile-first approach to wired and wireless networking puts it in a prime position to capitalise on this growth in the region," Smith says.

"Aruba's capabilities to accelerate an organisation's move to IoT adoption is also an area I'm very excited to bring to life in this market.

As well as his stint leading HPE's server business unit, Smith's 25 year career in ICT includes senior management roles at IBM and Lenovo and more recently an SAP focused consulting role at the Department of Defence.

Aruba has been bolstering its headcount across the region in recent times, as the company makes an aggressive bid to grow and maintain its foothold. Last year it increased its ANZ headcount 30%, including the appointment of Andrew Fox as Aruba New Zealand country manager.

HPE says Coad is shifting his focus 'to support a number of personal business initiatives'.