Two executives, Barry Duplantis and Paul Smith, have gained new roles at the open source communication platform provider Mattermost.
Duplantis will ascend from his current position as vice president of customer success and support to head up the government solutions division and Smith will reside on Mattermost’s public sector board of advisors, the Palo Alto, California-based company said Friday.
As Mattermost Government Solutions leader, Duplantis will be tasked with tailoring the company’s platform and services to the objectives and requirements of various federal government agencies.
The latter executive has been with Mattermost for nearly a year and a half. Before coming aboard, he oversaw customer response and support initiatives at Red Hat and Hortonworks and spearheaded support and services at organizations like HackerOne, Hewlett Packard and OpsWare.
In addition to customer support, Duplantis specializes in crisis management and logistics. He was a special forces officer in the U.S. Army, so he brings a familiarity with military and defense needs to his new job liaising with DoD officials.
“As global tensions continue to rise, the Department of Defense increasingly needs a mission-focused secure collaboration platform for coordination with mission partners,” Duplantis shared.
Smith is expected to leverage an over three-decade career partnering with federal government entities on behalf of technology companies. For 17 years he worked at Red Hat as senior vice president and general manager of public sector business, wherein he was a seasoned marketer of the company’s own open source communication platform.
In his new advisory role, Smith said he looks forward to “identifying new use cases for its technology” and “work[ing] closely alongside Barry and the rest of the Mattermost team to expand their presence within the public sector.”
First up on Duplantis’ docket is a recently announced Small Business Innovation Research Phase II contract to assist the Air Force with creating a mission-specific collaboration platform.