Stephen Spears Named Chief Revenue Officer of Avaya; Jim Chirico Quoted

Avaya has appointed Stephen Spears as chief revenue officer (CRO) to add to the company's strategic executive management team. Spears will report to president and CEO Jim Chirico, Avaya said on Wednesday. 

“The re-imagined Avaya has never been more relevant to our growing base of customers and partners globally, and the way we are executing shows the winning mentality, expanding commitment to our customers, and strong culture of Avaya. We could not be more excited to have Stephen join our team,” said Chirico.

In his new role, Spears will supervise the strategy, performance and alignment of revenue operations for Avaya, as well as accelerate execution on the company’s growth strategy. Spears will also help deliver effective solutions to Avaya customers and partners worldwide. 

“Stephen has a keen understanding of what it takes to drive sales, marketing and customer success, making him an ideal fit to help lead execution on our very deliberate strategy,” Chirico added. 

As CRO, Spears will have full ownership of the company’s revenue generating organizations, customer lifecycle and go-to-client functions, including global sales and marketing, partner management and all channel related activities.

Spears will bring nearly three decades of experience within managerial and go-to-market experience as well as an expertise in the SaaS and Cloud arena. Prior to joining Avaya, Spears spent 17 years in a variety of key senior leadership roles at SAP. 

Most recently, Spears served as CRO of SAP SuccessFactors, where he helped redefine the HCM category to Human Experience Management (HXM) and grew annual revenues by approximately 30 percent with more than 7,000 customers in over 200 countries and territories worldwide.

As senior vice president of HANA Enterprise Cloud with SAP, Spears was responsible for the global GTM for SAP's HANA Enterprise Cloud. He also served as senior vice president of ITM and Middleware with the company before his leadership position at the cloud division. 

“Putting people at the center of communications is at the heart of every successful business worldwide, and Avaya’s unwavering commitment to this goal will help drive a customer-centric approach that will generate top-line growth and sustainable solutions for decades to come,” said Spears. “I am thrilled to be joining such an experienced and passionate management team.”

About Avaya

Businesses are built by the experiences they provide, and everyday millions of those experiences are delivered by Avaya Holdings Corp. (NYSE: AVYA). Avaya is shaping what's next for the future of work, with innovation and partnerships that deliver game-changing business benefits. Our cloud communications solutions and multi-cloud application ecosystem power personalized, intelligent, and effortless customer and employee experiences to help achieve strategic ambitions and desired outcomes. Together, we are committed to help grow your business by delivering Experiences that Matter.