Dries Buytaert

Acquia's subscription business has taken off as expected, and we are now launching a number of new initiatives as announced in the Acquia 2009 roadmap. With the coming release of Acquia Search, new projects like Acquia Fields and Acquia Gardens, all in addition to our existing subscription business, there is a ton of stuff going on at Acquia. We've set ourselves some very ambitious goals.

With all these new projects and opportunities, we needed additional management bandwidth in the company. Today, we're pleased to announce that Tom Erickson is Acquia's new CEO. Tom has had an important role in Acquia since our inception, as a member of our Advisory Board since day one, and as a Director on our Board for the past year. Jay, myself, and the rest of the management team have thoroughly enjoyed working with Tom. We've seen how much he can add to a company and so we really wanted Tom to take the reigns as CEO.

Tom has run both startups and large multi-nationals. Most recently, Tom was the CEO of Systinet Corporation, a privately held software company that was acquired by Mercury Interactive in 2006. He has also been Asia Pacific President of the Baan Company and International Vice President of webMethods. Beyond that, Tom has held executive positions at Filenet/Watermark Software and MRO Software.

I've wanted Tom to be an integral part of Acquia from pretty much the first time we met. We went out for sushi that day (I'm a sushi fanatic) and Tom ordered 5 different plates of tuna sashimi in Japanese. That evening, I learned that he has lived abroad for over 10 years and has picked up a smattering of languages (including Dutch) and other cultural insights. We spent a lot of time talking about Open Source, how to build a great business, and Drupal world dominance. I've learned a tremendous amount from Tom, respect his role as a mentor to Acquia, and have seen how he is able to help manage our team that spans several continents and time zones.

Bringing on a new CEO and expanding the executive leadership team is not unusual in a venture-backed startup. In addition to Tom, we've also added a VP of Sales, Warren Utt, who brings an extensive sales and operations track record to help us grow Acquia. Jay Batson, Acquia's founding CEO, will continue in a management role for the company and has his own thoughts to share about this — including that Tom has been a first choice for this from the beginning. Like Jay, I'm very excited about the fact that we were able to convince Tom to join us full-time. Welcome Tom and Warren!