Management Board

Dirk-Peter van Leeuwen
Chief Executive Officer
Member of the Management Board

Dirk-Peter van Leeuwen (“DP”) is Chief Executive Officer of SUSE and a member of the Management Board of SUSE S.A.

Prior to joining SUSE, DP worked at Red Hat for 18 years holding a number of senior executive positions. From 2010 to 2021, he was Red Hat’s General Manager in Asia Pacific and Japan and from 2021 to 2022 their General Manager in North America.

Before joining Red Hat, he held senior roles at Planetweb, BSDI and the Santa Cruz Operation.

DP is on the board of the Institute of Systems Science at the National University of Singapore and since 2017 has been a mentor for women in business with Protégé Business Mentoring. In addition to his technical education, DP holds qualifications from the International Institute for Management Development (IMD) and Harvard Business School.

DP lives in Switzerland with his family. He continues to program using open source code as a hobby.

Ian Halifax
Chief Financial Officer
Member of the Management Board

Ian Halifax is our Chief Financial Officer responsible for worldwide finance, accounting, tax and treasury operations, management reporting, procurement, forecasting and planning, and IT. Ian has more than 30 years' experience in senior financial leadership positions, including as Chief Financial Officer at leading global technology providers such as Trellix (McAfee Enterprise/FireEye), Riverbed Technology, Wind River Systems,Micromuse and Macrovision. He has substantial strategic and executional experience in public and private technology companies, and has extensive M&A and investor relations expertise.

Andy McDonald
Chief Legal Officer and Company Secretary
Member of the Management Board

Andy McDonald is our Chief Legal Officer & Company Secretary, responsible for all aspects of legal, regulatory and corporate governance. He has a wealth of experience in legal affairs and governance in a variety of companies, including Interserve, Premier Foods plc, Uniq plc and Spirent plc.

Andy worked as a corporate lawyer at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer before moving into Industry. He is based in the UK.

Frank Feldmann
Chief Strategy Officer

Frank Feldmann is Chief Strategy Officer for SUSE, where he focuses on the development and execution of long-term business strategies. In addition to his strategic planning and execution skills, he has a strong foundation in technology product management, sales and technology marketing and is a well-respected leader of people. Frank's distinguished 25 year career includes more than 15 years in several EMEA & APAC senior management roles at Red Hat, as well as at Novell where he focused on technology transformation, business change and growth.

Imran Khan
Chief Customer Officer

Imran is SUSE’s Chief Customer Officer and is responsible for Customer Renewals, Customer Service and Support and Customer Success. Imran has over 20 years’ experience building and leading successful customer success and services organizations for technology industry companies. With a passion for change and the customer experience, he is dedicated to delivering performance and value to customers, as well as to organizations and staff. Imran has held various global leadership positions at tech companies including BMC Software, JDA Software and Hewlett Packard.

Imran is a qualified accountant and holds a degree in business and finance from the University of Middlesex. Imran lives in the United Kingdom.

Ivo Totev
Chief Marketing Officer

As the Chief Marketing Officer at SUSE, Ivo Totev is focusing on better experiences for prospects and customers by elevating the brand value of SUSE, growing the demand for the SUSE solutions and fostering engagement with the various communities SUSE is participating in. His role is pivotal in equipping SUSE's sales and field marketing teams with the tools and messages they need to convert prospects into valued customers.

Prior to his tenure at SUSE, he held several senior positions, including President of Product Marketing at SAP, CMO and Head of Cloud Business at Software AG, and CMO of Unit4. Ivo's extensive 25 year background and expertise in the technology sector make him a driving force in SUSE's journey towards excellence.

Lisa Sherwell
Chief People Officer

Lisa Sherwell, our Chief People Officer, is a global strategy and transformation executive with 25 years in the B2B technology, Services and Business Process Outsourcing industries. Passionate about crafting vision and developing employee-centric strategies, Lisa has a strong track record of bringing transformation to life for organizations of all sizes.

Before becoming interim Chief People Officer, Lisa led the Strategy Management & Transformation team at SUSE – overseeing strategy execution, strategic M&A integration, organizational design and process optimization.

Prior to SUSE, Lisa worked at SAP and Merchants, a Dimension Data Company where she held various roles including General Manager and Global Sales Director. She has managed teams of up to 800 people and is a passionate champion of empowerment, transformation and people centric leadership.

Lisa has also served as board member for five years for BPeSA, driving foreign direct investment and job creation in South Africa.

Savitha Nayak
Vice President of DE&I, Culture and Talent

Savitha Nayak is Vice President of DE&I, Culture and Talent. Savitha is a seasoned Senior HR professional with nearly three decades of experience spanning Asia Pacific, North America, and EMEA. Armed with an Engineering degree, she has a successful track record of building and developing top performing teams & growing organisations like Elastic, Red Hat, Singtel, NCS, KPMG and Oracle. She has also run a successful consulting firm with many of the well known companies as clients and being an executive coach to many senior executives across the world. She has deep expertise in making visions happen, identifying opportunities in people and business, influencing, and driving change in fast growing environments.

Dr. Thomas Di Giacomo
Chief Technology & Product Officer

Thomas Di Giacomo is Chief Technology and Product Officer for SUSE, where he leads our global Office of the CTO and Product and Solution Management. His team covers SUSE’s entire portfolio of products as well as innovation priorities. He is also responsible for driving and guiding SUSE's current and future technology and solutions, and for sharing SUSE’s vision with customers, partners, and key industry stakeholders.

Prior to his role, Thomas was SUSE’s President of Engineering & Innovation and was responsible for the rapid growth of SUSE’s expanding portfolio. He has over 20 years of experience in the IT industry, serving in various global leadership and executive roles in engineering and product innovation.

Thomas holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Geneva, and lives in Switzerland.

Werner Knoblich
Chief Revenue Officer

Werner Knoblich is SUSE’s Chief Revenue Officer leading the global field organisation. His primary objective is to drive and expedite SUSE's growth trajectory.

Werner has been a field sales leader for more than two decades. Most recently, Werner was Global CRO at SaaS provider Mambu. During his tenure, he played a pivotal role in revitalizing Mambu's go-to-market strategy, emphasizing a stronger focus on strategic partner ecosystems. Prior to that he led the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) business at Red Hat for 18 years, where he and his team grew it from $20 million in 2003 to over $1.5 billion in 2021.

Werner holds an MBA from the University of Stuttgart-Hohenheim and currently resides in the Munich area. In his leisure time, he is a passionate sportsman.