Xamarin, the company with more than 870,000 mobile developers delivering mission-critical, cross-platform enterprise and consumer apps, today announced it has hired longtime Microsoft executive Sam Henry as Vice President of Sales Strategy and Enablement. The hire is Xamarin’s latest investment in creating the standard platform for enterprise mobile development and quality.
“Developers are bringing Xamarin into the enterprise at a skyrocketing pace, and Sam is bringing the leadership, energy, and experience we need to scale our enterprise teams to a whole new level,” said Stephanie Schatz, SVP of Xamarin Sales and Customer Success. “Our customers will greatly benefit from Sam’s passion for developers and how mobile software can revolutionize the way we live and work.”
Henry will help Xamarin continue the strong momentum achieved in 2014. Xamarin’s developer community has grown 98% in the last year to more than 870,000 developers and sales have increased by 250%. Following a $54 million series C funding round in August—the largest single round of any mobile app development company—Xamarin expanded into adjacent areas of the mobile application lifecycle with Xamarin Test Cloud and Xamarin Insights.
“I have followed and worked with the Xamarin team for years, and have seen first hand the power of Xamarin to help developers expand the reach of their apps to billions of devices, while at the same time lowering development costs,” said Henry. “Xamarin has an incredibly strong connection with the developer community. This is a company built by developers for developers, and that’s what I want to be a part of.”
Xamarin has built a strong network of partners and enterprise-grade products to meet the challenges of enterprise mobility. Last year, Xamarin tightened their relationship with Microsoft by integrating Xamarin templates directly into Visual Studio, and the company also has thriving partnerships with SAP, and IBM, and over 250 partners in their consulting partner network.
Henry will help lead the company’s continued growth in the enterprise. “Xamarin products are beloved by the enterprise already, and I see a huge opportunity to introduce Xamarin to every company seeking to launch or refine their mobile strategy and create significant business value,” said Henry.
After 12 years at Microsoft, most recently as Head of Global Sales Enablement for the Cloud Development platform, Henry brings deep expertise in driving enterprise sales and will be an essential leader in driving increased productivity and customer satisfaction with Xamarin’s fast-growing sales and customer success teams. He’ll build an integrated sales and customer success organization focused on enterprise customers. Henry will also be responsible for developing and operating field programs and driving field engagement with strategic enterprise partners, such as Microsoft and IBM.
Henry has a long history of success at Microsoft, helping to transform Developer Tools from a transactional, reseller-driven business to a billion-dollar plus enterprise juggernaut. Throughout his Microsoft tenure, Henry helped launch Visual Studio .NET and .NET Framework 1.0, introduced an entirely new enterprise product line and direct sales strategy, and spent nine years in various field sales, marketing, and evangelism leadership roles.
Most recently, Henry developed a world-class sales enablement function for the Microsoft Cloud Development Platform teams - focusing on bridging product strategy with field execution by leading and creating sales and marketing programs, as well as the division’s internal big data initiative.
Additionally, Henry has taken on extensive charitable and mentorship roles outside of his day-to-day responsibilities. He started GiveCamp to connect local developers to nonprofits to build meaningful applications and he is a partner and board member at Fine Points where he provides strategic direction for building leadership development programs for Fortune 500 businesses.
About Xamarin:
Xamarin is the new standard for enterprise mobile development and quality. Xamarin is used by over 870,000 developers to accelerate the creation and testing of mission-critical consumer and enterprise apps. More than 100 Fortune 500 companies use Xamarin, and the company’s global customer base in 150 countries includes Dow Jones, Bosch, McKesson, Halliburton, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Cognizant, GitHub, Rdio and WebMD. Xamarin is a Visionary in Gartner’s 2014 Magic Quadrant report for Mobile Application Development Platforms. For more information, please visit: xamarin.com or follow us @xamarinhq.
