Singh Takes on CEO Role at Docker
Docker, the fast-growing, 4-year-old, flagship company of the open source container trend, is replacing its CEO with the seasoned technology executive who was already serving as its chairman for the last six months.
Steve Singh was named Tuesday as the CEO, adding the title to the chairman role he assumed in November. Singh was the founder and CEO of Concur, and later served in senior management roles and as an executive board member at SAP after the business software giant acquired Concur in 2014 for $8.3 billion.
He replaces Docker CEO Ben Golub, who moves to a director role on the board. Golub noted in a blog post about the transition that he joined the company in April 2013 when it consisted of 15 employees and the project had 10 contributors. Now, he said, the company consists of 330 people, the project has 3,300 contributors, and Docker has developer and server counts in the millions and a "dockerized" app count of 900,000. Over the last 18 months, that app count has been increasingly including containers on Microsoft Azure and on Windows Server 2016 due to a deep partnership between Docker and Microsoft.
"I believe that Docker, backed by its platform and fueled by innovation from its collaborative ecosystem, is on track to be the next great enterprise software company."
Steve Singh, chairman and now CEO of Docker
Golub did not specifically say why he was stepping down, although the implication in his blog and in an official news release about the change was that Singh has the experience and skills to help the company strengthen its partner base, increase its enterprise footprint, drive revenues and build an enduring company.
"While there is always some uncertainty about changing roles, I am 100% certain that Steve is the right person for Docker," Golub wrote.
Docker Founder and CTO Solomon Hykes credited Golub for much of Docker's growth over the past four years. "Without Ben, Docker wouldn't be in such an incredible position as a platform and as a company," Hykes said in a statement. Of Singh, Hykes said, "With Steve's unique expertise, we will build an organization capable of delivering on that demand, and serving our customers across the globe."
Singh himself expressed bold ambitions for the company in a prepared comment: "I believe that Docker, backed by its platform and fueled by innovation from its collaborative ecosystem, is on track to be the next great enterprise software company."
Posted by Scott Bekker on May 02, 2017 at 3:18 PM