Eight years ago, when I was JBoss’ GM Europe, David Skok introduced me to Michel Goossens with whom he had worked while at Silverstream. Following that introduction, Marc and I met Michel at Javapolis in Antwerp. That was at the end of 2004.
I remember Michel telling us his story, how he started his career as a pilot, how he had to emigrate to Africa to keep his license, given how bad the flight industry was in Europe in the early 80′s, how he was then flying highly priced horses from rich farmers around Africa, from competition to competition and how, when he came back to Europe, he was struck by the 1982 Time’s magazine “Person of the Year”: The Computer . This made him realize computers would get big, so he decided to go back to university, and learn what computers were about while taking his first job in IT.
Fast forward and 20 years later, Michel and I started working together at JBoss and had some real fun. After JBoss’ acquisition by Red Hat, Michel built Red Hat middleware overlay salesforce and then moved on to join Magento, which was later acquired by E-Bay.
During all of those years, Michel and I have kept in touch and when I started CloudBees in 2010, Michel invested in CloudBees as part of our Series-A . 20 months after that, CloudBees’ European business is booming and I approached Michel to see if he was up for some more fun and was willing to put his time where his money is. And he was.
Consequently, I am very honored to announce that Michel has joined CloudBees as VP Sales Europe.
Welcome Michel!
Onward,
Sacha Labourey
CEO
CloudBees, Inc.