Company

Bob Flynn, President and General Manager

Bob Flynn oversees day-to-day operations for Novell, Inc., a business unit of The Attachmate® Group. His role comprises product development, management, and marketing, as well as technical support, sales, and sales operations. He is responsible for the overall goals, strategies, and decision making that impact Novell financial results, employee morale, and customer satisfaction.

Previously, Bob was the president and general manager of Attachmate, another business unit of The Attachmate Group. Bob joined Attachmate in 1998 following a 17-year career with IBM in numerous management and executive positions, specializing in service and support for large enterprise environments. At IBM, he led global multi-million-dollar consulting engagements at Fortune 100 companies, directed and redefined key internal IBM processes, and managed a region-wide $500 million services division.

He holds a bachelor's degree in business administration from Oregon State University.

Dave Wilkes, Vice President, Engineering

Dave Wilkes is responsible for driving development and innovation efforts at Novell and leads the engineering and architecture team for the organization's collaboration, endpoint management, and file and networking solutions.

Dave has been with Novell since 1991, working in various engineering roles focused on Novell global brands such as NetWare®, Open Enterprise Server, GroupWise® and ZENworks®. Prior to Novell, he was a software engineer at Hewlett-Packard. With a management emphasis on driving product innovation while balancing business imperatives, Dave has successfully led teams through ramping up with near and off-shore sourcing and cross-team collaboration.

He holds a bachelor's degree in Computer Science and a minor in Math from Brigham Young University.

Eric Varness, Vice President, North America Sales and Global Marketing

Eric Varness leads the North American sales organization for Novell. He also leads the global Marketing organization, directing the product marketing and marketing communication teams.

Prior to Novell, Eric led product management and marketing for Attachmate, a business unit of The Attachmate Group. With more than 20 years of technology management experience, Eric's career has included business development, marketing and product management positions at DataChannel and Mosaix".

He earned a bachelor's degree in history from the University of Washington.

Dirk W. Schmidt, Vice President of Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) Sales

Dirk W. Schmidt is the vice president of Novell sales in EMEA. He is responsible for the sales strategy, business and technical sales teams, partner routes and marketing in EMEA.

After a career in Tax and Corporate Law outside of the tech industry, Dirk joined Novell in 1996 to manage Copyrights, Trademarks and Novell legal affairs in Central, Eastern and Northern Europe. Since then, Dirk has served in a variety of leadership positions for Novell EMEA, including responsibility for the RFP response team, field operations, Novell's maintenance business, and Novell’s End-User Computing and TeleWeb sales. With the acquisition of Novell by The Attachmate Group in 2011, Dirk was named to lead all of Novell sales in EMEA.

He holds a Master of Law degree from Rheinsche Friedrich Wilhelms University in Bonn, Germany.

Boris Ivancic, Vice President and General Manager, Asia Pacific

Boris Ivancic is responsible for all activities across The Attachmate Group business units (Attachmate, NetIQ, Novell and SUSE) in the Asia Pacific region, including Australia, New Zealand, China, Japan, India, and Singapore.

Prior to joining The Attachmate Group in 1999, Boris was the sales director in charge of Australia and New Zealand for Lotus Development. He also held various sales and channel management roles with Compaq.

Boris earned an electrical engineering degree from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology.

Ron Milton, Vice President, Global Services & Customer Value Realization

Ron Milton is responsible for leading professional services, technical support, product-line sales engineering, education and training programs as well as online communities at Novell. In this capacity, Milton is responsible for programs to ensure customers realize maximum value from Novell solutions. With over 25 years in the technology industry, Ron joined Novell from International Data Group (IDG), where he drove operations and strategy for Computerworld, InfoWorld and ITWorld as their executive vice president. He also served as chairman of the board of trustees for the Computerworld IT Awards Foundation. Previously, Ron has also held a variety of Marketing, Sales and Channel Management positions at GLA Computer Systems and Bull HN Information Systems.

Ron holds a graduate diploma for Strategic Marketing Management from the University of Toronto and a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Concordia University.

Edwin Bowman, General Manager, Latin America

Edwin Bowman is responsible for all activities across The Attachmate Group business units (Attachmate, NetIQ, Novell and SUSE) in Mexico, Caribbean, Central America, and South America. He brings to the position nearly 20 years of IT experience, along with a strong focus on customers and results.

Prior to joining The Attachmate Group in 1999, Edwin was national sales director for NCR Corporation, where he spent six years.

He holds management, finance, and MBA degrees, as well as a business Spanish certificate, from the University of Cincinnati.

John Delk, Vice President, Channel and Alliances

As vice president of Channel and Alliances for The Attachmate Group business units of NetIQ, Novell and SUSE, John Delk is responsible for leading the teams responsible for channel, alliances and service providers.

Prior to joining The Attachmate Group, John held a number of management positions at Novell in both sales and services across all of the company’s key solution areas. He previously served as vice president at EDS and managing partner at BearingPoint/KPMG Consulting, where he was responsible for leading teams that developed industry-leading capabilities focused on effective use of technology for enterprise customers in the finance and telecommunications industries.

John holds a master’s degree in Computer Science from Georgia Tech, and a bachelor’s degree in Math and Computer Science from Furman University.

Katherine Tate, Vice President, Global Sales Operations

With responsibility for global sales operations across Attachmate and Novell business units of The Attachmate Group, Katherine Tate oversees the processes that ensure smooth business transactions for customers, partners, and field sales. She also spearheaded the effort to define the vision, mission, and beliefs framework used by all business units across The Attachmate Group.

In addition to sales operations, Katherine's 20+ years at Attachmate has spanned technical support, consulting, sales tools, and training. Prior to Attachmate, she was an HP3000 systems manager at the University of Maryland and a technical editor at MYU Research.

Katherine has a bachelor's degree in computer science from the University of Idaho as well as an MBA with an emphasis on technology management from the University of Washington.