RALEIGH, N.C. – Red Hat’s drive for business in Latin America is picking up additional resources with the addition of a new office in Mexico City and the hiring of several new employees as part of Red Hat Mexico.
And if the Hatters’ success in a yearlong effort in South America are any indication, the Linux software developer and services provider will be adding many more people shortly.
“I’d say between five and 10 people this year” will be hired, said Gabriel Szulik, general manager for Latin America at Red Hat, “mostly sales, pre-sales, administration and marketing. We currently have a sales rep on the ground, and we’re actively recruiting other sales, pre-sales, administration, and marketing staff.”
While the Mexico City office is the only one for now, Szulik told WRAL Local Tech Wire that Red Hat has other resources on which to build. “We do have a network of business partners with whom we cover the rest of the Mexican territory,” he said.
Suzlik, who is not related to Red Hat Chairman and Chief Executive officer Matthew Szulik, said he expected growth would be rapid.
“Regarding projections, I’d give the example of Brazil where we had zero people a year ago, and this year we’ll end up with almost 50 people,” he explained.
Red Hat has already hired Juan Manuel Ruiz to act as director of Red Hat Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean and the Andean countries.
The Red Hat Mexico launch is another example of the Raleigh-based firm’s aggressive international expansion efforts. It recently acquired full ownership of Red Hat operations in India in addition to the launching of efforts in South America.
“The new Red Hat offices in Mexico, together with the offices of Brazil and Argentina, prove our commitment to a continued global expansion in international markets,” Gabriel Szulik added. “We believe that the market will continue to provide growth opportunities for our solutions.”
Red Hat already has clients in the region, such as two large banks and telecommunications firms. It also has training centers for customer support and works with other partners such as HP, IBM, Dell, Intel, AMD, Oracle and SAP.
