Opscode Names Barry Crist as CEO

Opscode, which makes infrastructure automation tools, said today that Barry Crist has been appointed as CEO and Chairman of the company’s Board of Directors. Former CEO Mitch Hill is stepping down to address a personal health issue and will remain on the company’s board.

Crist spent the last five months as Opscode’s Vice President, Enterprise, successfully leading enterprise customer engagement for the company. Before joining Opscode, Crist served as CEO of Likewise, Inc. where he built an open source, free-to-premium sales model that reached more than 100,000 organizations worldwide. Crist previosuly served as Vice President of the Application Management group at Mercury, and spent time in leadership positions at Network Associates (now McAfee) and Apple.

“We’re rooting for Mitch as he focuses on his health and thankful for his tremendous leadership in building Opscode into a market leader,” said Crist. “We are in the midst of a massive change in the enterprise and we’re incredibly fortunate that Chef is at its epicenter. Opscode’s focus will be on empowering our customers to transform their businesses with Enterprise Chef.”

Chef is an open source framework using repeatable code – organized as “recipes” and “cookbooks” – to automate the configuration and management process for virtual servers. Opscode said last week that Fortune 1000 companies now represent 60 percent of its sales, with the Fortune 1000 customer base having grown 150 percent in the past year.

“Under Mitch’s leadership Opscode has become one of the most promising and disruptive next-generation technology leaders,” said John Connors, Managing Partner at Ignitions Partners. “Barry Crist’s broad experience and stellar track record combined with his unique expertise building a successful open source-based company makes him the right leader for the next generation of growth at Opscode.”

Opscode also said today that co-founder Adam Jacob has been named Chief Dev Officer and Paul Edelhertz will now serve as Senior Vice President of Customer Operations, driving enterprise adoption and customer success with Enterprise Chef. Jacob previously served as the company’s Chief Customer Officer, while Edelhertz had been Vice President of the company’s Services and Community organizations.