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Hitachi Solutions America Hires Sales & Marketing Ops Leader from Microsoft

by Linda Rosencrance
Contributing Writer, MSDW

After 24 years with Microsoft, Michael Strand has joined Hitachi Solutions America Ltd. as senior vice president, sales and marketing operations, effective December 7, 2015.

Strand joined Hitachi Solutions Group after working in channel and enterprise sales roles at Microsoft. He began his role as a transformation leader or "change agent" in 2004 when he joined Microsoft Business Solutions, where it was his job to build and manage the first enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) enterprise sales organization in the US.

Now that Hitachi Solutions has acquired Ignify Inc., Strand's job is to unify Hitachi Solutions' global businesses, including delivery of industry-specific cloud solutions, according to a statement. 

Strand at one point headed up the Microsoft Business Solutions organization for the US Western region where he was responsible for channel, marketing, sales and presales for enterprise customers. He also spent three years as general manager of Microsoft Business Solutions in the Asia/Pacific region, running the Microsoft Dynamics ERP and Dynamics CRM business. In two out of three of those years, the Asia Pacific subsidiary became Microsoft's top multi-sub area globally for selling Dynamics ERP and CRM.

"I joined Hitachi Solutions because I share the company's strategic vision of how cloud computing can and will transform the Microsoft Dynamics business. In my executive role at Microsoft, I have worked closely with Hitachi Solutions since 2004 and have long-admired their tremendous commitment to customer success," Strand said in a statement.

About Linda Rosencrance

Linda Rosencrance is a freelance writer/editor in the Boston area. Rosencrance has over 25 years experience as an reporter/investigative reporter, writing for many newspapers in the metropolitan Boston area. Rosencrance has been writing about information technology for the past 16 years.

She has covered a variety of IT subjects, including Microsoft Dynamics, mobile security issues such as data loss prevention, network management, secure mobile app development, privacy, cloud computing, BI, big data, analytics, HR, CRM, ERP, and enterprise IT.

Rosencrance is the author of six true crime books for Kensington Publishing Corp.