The Open Compute Project Foundation (OCP) has appointed a new CEO: George Tchaparian.
From 2014 to 2021, Tchaparian was President and CEO of Edgecore Networks Corporation, a network hardware company known for its "white-box" OCP hardware, not to be confused with the wholesale data center builder and investor Edgecore Internet Real Estate, formed in 2018.
Tchaparian worked for Hewlett-Packard for 27 years from 1985, serving as a senior engineer on the company's successful ProCurve range of switches, before moving to the Taiwanese switch maker Accton in 2012. Accton set up Edgecore as an independent subsidiary making "white box" networking equipment, producing no-frills network kit for large users, often according to open source specifications provided by the OCP.
During 2021, after he left Edgecore, Tchaparian returned to Accton for some strategy work. He was also the general manager for Accton Group’s open disaggregated networking business.
He was previously co-chair of the OCP Taiwan regional group for many years and a member of the Open Network Foundation (ONF) board of directors.
“OCP has achieved remarkable growth in the past several years. The technology challenges ahead and goal to extend our impact across segments will require new approaches and new partnerships. I am extremely excited that George will be leading our Community on this journey ahead! In addition to understanding development practices and the worldwide supply chain, his experience creating partnerships will be key to addressing the business and technology challenges that we anticipate,” said OCP CTO Bill Carter, who has served interim director since July 2021, after the retirement of CEO Rocky Bullock.
Carter has been CTO at the OCP for nearly ten years and will stand down in 2022, but continue as a technical advisor.
So the search now begins for a new OCP CTO: “The Foundation is at an important juncture, having just celebrated our ten-year anniversary” said Rebecca Weekly, chairperson of the board for the OCP Foundation. “In addition to the hiring of industry veteran George, we now need to fill this important role with an individual who brings to the Foundation hardware, software, silicon and solutions experience as our collaborative innovations continue to meet the needs of worldwide organizations from the data center to the Edge.”
"OCP has a bright future ahead, and I look forward to working with our solid Foundation team, board of directors, OCP members and its growing ecosystem, to execute our next generation strategies and broadly apply OCP leadership to deliver greater value to the Community” said Tchaparian.
