CA Names New Sales Chief

Computer Associates named Gregory Corgan, a former executive at IBM and Terraspring Inc., as its new head of North American sales Thursday. The move comes two days after CA laid off 450 consultants in a shakeup of its technical-support department.

Corgan, 49, most recently served as an operations executive at Terraspring, a software vendor that was acquired by Sun Microsystems in November. Sun uses Terraspring's software in its N1 data-center management software. Hewlett-Packard also licenses the technology.

Corgan spent 24 years at IBM, where he oversaw software sales, marketing, and technical support and was a member of former CEO Lou Gerstner's leadership team. He left IBM three years ago. Corgan also worked for OneChem Ltd., an Internet startup.

CA is remaking its sales and support operations as it seeks to improve customer service and satisfaction. On Tuesday, the company said it would combine presales consulting and post-sales technical support into a new group in order to speed up deployments of its software.

Corgan, who'll have the title of senior VP, takes charge of CA's North American region, where it makes more than 60% of sales. He'll report to executive VP Stephen Richards, who previously headed North American sales.