IDC appoints former CA Technologies exec to head IT infrastructure, cloud practice

International Data Corporation (IDC) announced that Stephen Elliot is joining the firm as vice president of its IT Infrastructure and Cloud practice, on its CIO Agenda research team.

Elliot will advise enterprise IT organizations and the investment community on DevOps, private and hybrid clouds, automation, virtualization, IT operations, and software-defined data centers. As part of IDC's IT Executive Programs, the CIO Agenda research program provides IT executives and their staff with the strategies, proven best practices, peer benchmarks, insights and advisory support to unlock the potential of organizations and their leaders.

Elliot joins IDC from CA Technologies, an enterprise management software provider, where he held various leadership roles as the company's vice president of strategy for its Infrastructure Management and Data Center Automation business units, as well as led product management for its VCE relationship. He also developed strategic initiatives as part of CA's corporate strategy team. In these roles, he provided direct strategic and tactical advice to customers that wanted to accelerate their path towards the cloud, software-defined data centers, and DevOps.

Prior to CA Technologies, Elliot was a noted software industry analyst at firms including IDC, Gartner, and Forrester, where he advised IT executives, vendors, and the financial community on IT operations, virtualization, automation, and network and application management. He also served as a product marketing manager at Inteq, an early provider of SaaS-based network monitoring and service desk capabilities, helping customers understand the business value of the SaaS delivery model.

Elliot earned a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Southern California, completed graduate work in Public Administration at American University (Washington D.C.), and completed executive education at Harvard Business School.

"IDC's rapid growth in advising enterprise IT organizations and their use of 3rd platform technologies across staffing, processes, and data center technologies, requires a balance of business and technology acumen. Stephen has the skill set, the strong background, passion, and the know-how to create unique insights that help our clients transform operations and drive business leadership," comments Joseph Pucciarelli, IDC's vice president and IT executive advisor.