SUSE revamps structure to boost digital sovereignty focus

SUSE has reshaped its technology and product organisation in Europe and made two senior appointments as it increases its focus on digital sovereignty, field execution and a more segmented product portfolio.

Nicholas Dimotakis has joined as Vice President of Global Technology Sales, and Astor Carlberg has become Director of Open Source Sovereignty and Community Engagement. SUSE has also centralised parts of its engineering structure and expanded the number of solutions-focused business units.

Thomas Di Giacomo, Chief Technology and Product Officer, linked the organisational changes to market conditions and customer feedback.

"Our new structure is a direct response to the feedback of our partners and customers, as well as current market dynamics," said Thomas Di Giacomo, Chief Technology and Product Officer at SUSE. "By centralizing our engineering expertise and sharpening our business units, we are better positioned to help our customers navigate complex challenges across our entire portfolio-from AI and cloud native to the edge and Linux. This unified approach is essential as our customers increasingly require integrated solutions that ensure digital sovereignty and resilience, allowing them to maintain control over their data and technology stacks in an evolving global landscape. The addition of Nicholas and Astor reinforces our commitment to ensuring our technical and portfolio roadmap is perfectly synchronized with the real-world challenges our customers face every day."

Go-to-market hires

Dimotakis previously worked at Canonical, where he was Vice President of Worldwide Field Engineering. At SUSE, he will sit in the revenue organisation and lead global technology sales.

The role includes a dotted-line reporting relationship to Di Giacomo, intended to support close coordination between engineering teams and field operations.

Carlberg joins from OpenForum Europe, where he was Executive Director. His role sits within a newly formed digital sovereignty team in SUSE's strategy organisation. The remit combines sovereignty themes with community engagement, a core part of open source development and adoption.

Sachiko Muto, Chair of OpenForum Europe, commented on Carlberg's move into the commercial open source ecosystem.

"These are important times for open technologies in Europe. As digital sovereignty and resilience move to the centre of the political agenda, experienced actors like Astor continuing to contribute to the open source ecosystem play an important role in strengthening Europe's capacity to innovate and collaborate. It is encouraging to see OFE alumni remain active in this space," said Sachiko Muto, Chair of OpenForum Europe.

Engineering changes

Alongside the appointments, SUSE has consolidated product and solution engineering into a single group under industry veteran Rick Spencer. The move is intended to help shift resources more quickly as market requirements change.

The consolidation also supports SUSE's stated plans to build more AI work into its infrastructure portfolio. SUSE sells Linux, Kubernetes container management and edge software, as well as products positioned for AI infrastructure. Its technology is used in on-premises data centres and cloud environments.

SUSE aims to provide a platform for AI workloads across cloud, on-premises, hybrid and disconnected environments, while keeping governance standards consistent across infrastructure types. This is a recurring requirement in regulated industries and public-sector deployments.

Six business units

The reorganisation also changes how SUSE structures its solutions business units, increasing the number from four to six.

The six business units are Linux, cloud native, edge, AI, telco and SAP. The expanded list signals stronger product and market separation for AI and telecommunications, while maintaining a distinct focus on SAP, a significant workload category for many large enterprises running Linux in production.

Separately, SUSE has created a portfolio and community function under Abhinav Puri, who has been with the company for a decade. Puri most recently led portfolio solutions and services, including the SUSE AI business unit.

The new group is intended to link corporate strategy with execution across the business units. It also places explicit emphasis on community, reflecting the role of open source governance, contributor relations and upstream project participation in product roadmaps.

The changes come as European organisations and policy makers place greater weight on control of data, infrastructure and supply chains. Digital sovereignty has become a strategic theme in government IT and in industries with cross-border compliance requirements.

For SUSE, which supplies open source infrastructure software to large enterprises and public-sector bodies, this focus intersects with product concerns such as deployment location, disconnected operations and lifecycle management across mixed environments.

Dimotakis and Carlberg will work within the new structure alongside the unified engineering team and expanded business-unit model.