Former Citrix and VMware Australia and New Zealand channel chief Neels du Plooy has been appointed to lead Splunk's partner organisation in ANZ.

In his new role as director of partners ANZ, du Plooy will be tasked with leading the data platform vendor's wide variety of channel interactions, from go-to-market to sales and partner business growth.

Du Plooy has been ANZ channels and alliances director at Citrix since April 2021 and says the decision to leave the company is a difficult one.

Before Citrix, Du Plooy was VMware ANZ head of channels, a role he served in for five years until February 2021, spending nine years with the company in total.

Splunk additional recent hires include former Sitecore APJ lead Mark Troselj as its new ANZ group vice president, replacing Simon Eid, who departed to begin a new role at MongoDB in November 2021.