You may have seen the news about Cantata hiring a new CEO and could possibly be wondering why they would do such a thing. After all, Mark Zionts was involved in building Cantata into the company it is today with the combination of Brooktrout and Excel.

 

This is the story based on my conversation with Peter Vescuso the VP of Marketing at Cantata. It seems that Mark is acknowledged as the talented entrepreneur that took the company to where it is today. The goal now is to take Cantata to the next level.

 

The new CEO is Tim Murray and Tim is an AT&T veteran having worked as Executive Vice President and President of various divisions of the Telecom giant. He was there for over 2 decades in fact. It turns out Mark Zionts recruited Tim and is still going to be the Vice Chairman of the company and will be an advisor to Tim.

 

Generally when you take an executive from a large monopoly and put them in a fast moving business, it is not a great fit. Peter addressed this without me even having to say anything. He says I really need to meet Tim as he is a great fit for this position. The implication is he is not the typical Fortune class executive. He is very down to earth Peter promises.

 

Besides, Peter pointed out that Tim ran Riversoft which is about the size of Cantata and also was in charge of a hosted Biometrics company.

 

One obvious benefit of having Tim at the helm of the company could be the Rolodex Tim carries with him. Having years of experience at AT&T means he knows people who hold important positions at this large telco as well as others.

 

This allows him to better synchronize Cantata marketing, product development and sales top meet the needs of these large telcos.

 

My take on this news is that it could turn out to be good based on the information provided. Cantata has a slew of market-leading products and loyal partners and customers. As the market gets more competitive and the company has to move more quickly it makes sense to have someone with Tim’s experience at the helm.

 

As long as Tim can keep the company innovating and can work the relationships he has, Cantata can see a big boost in its service provider business.

 

If this can be done while ensuring the enterprise side of the house still does well, the company could become stronger than ever.