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Mercer Rowe leaves Avaya, Gaurav Passi joins as president of Avaya Cloud

Avaya has hired Gurav Passi as the new president of Avaya cloud, filling the void left by the recently-departed Mercer Rowe.

Gurav Passi, president of Avaya cloud business group.

Gurav Passi most recently served as the executive vice-president of products and technology at Five9. Before Five9, Passi acted as the VP of products at Amdocs, and head of products at Deutsche Telecom. Avaya announced that Passi is joining the organization Nov. 5

“Leading Avaya’s cloud business is an exciting opportunity and I am eager to be working closely with the customers and a very talented Avaya team to rapidly advance our position driving innovation and digital transformation in the cloud,” said Passi. “The company’s massive install base along with our ability to penetrate new markets and add new customers presents an unparalleled opportunity to extend our footprint as a major force in both UCaaS and CCaaS.”

Avaya’s previous VP, Mercer Rowe, left the company after having been with Avaya for just a few months to “spend time with his family,” a spokesperson for Avaya told CDN.

 

Mercer Rowe, Avaya’s former vice-president and general manager of Avaya Cloud. File photo.

Avaya has been restructuring since filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in January 2017. It originally had plans to sell its call center division in order to alleviate its 6.3 billion dollar debt, but later reversed the decision after the deal fell through. Despite so, the telecommunication giant remains optimistic about its presence in the Canadian market. It recently completed the acquisition of Spoken, a Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) solution in March 2018. In addition, it also launched a major software update for its Avaya Workforce Optimization software solution in June.