Fourteen-year veteran Nick Lisi is the new top sales executive at SAS in a senior leadership shuffle at the $3 billion-a-year analytics software and services firm in Cary.

Lisi replaces another long-time SAS veteran Carl Farrell, who also had served as chief revenue officer.

“I can tell you that Nick Lisi is a good guy,” a source tells WRAL TechWire. “He has done a good job over the years bringing rigor to the sales process at SAS. He is well respected.”

The changes were disclosed late Monday afternoon.

In a note to the media, a SAS spokesperson disclosed the promotion of Lisi to Executive Vice President of Global Sales after having most recently served as senior vice president of sales and global field operations.

“[Lisi] has a long tenure at SAS as a country office manager and corporate sales executive and will provide the solid leadership necessary during this transition,” the spokesperson noted.

Reports emerged from inside the company earlier in the day that Farrell was no longer with SAS.

“Carl Farrell has left SAS,” the spokesperson said. “We thank him for his contributions to Sales and wish him well.”

SAS made no comment about what will happen to the chief revenue officer position.

“As Chief Revenue Officer responsible for growing our global revenues each year, I get a front-row seat at analytics implementations around the world,” Farrell noted in his LinkedIn profile.

According to that profile, Farrell had held his top sales and CRO position for nearly two years. Farrell joined SAS in 2002 as president of SAS Canada and Latin America. He was promoted to executive vice president of Asia Pacific, Americas and Europe Middle East Africa in 2008 and held that job until June 2015 when he was promoted to the top sales and chief revenue position.

Changes among top managers at SAS are relatively rare. The privately held venture launched in 1976. Another major change occurred in late 2015 when Jim Davis left as chief marketing officer to join Informatica. Two other SAS executives were later promoted to take over Davis’ duties.

Lisi rises through ranks

Lisi joined SAS in 2003 as Vice President of Sales for SAS Canada. He left SAS for a year to work at EMC then returned in 2008. Overall he has some 33 years of experience in sales.

“Nick’s deep industry experience and progressive sales leadership approaches have contributed to SAS’ long history of revenue growth,” SAS CEO Jim Goodnight said in a statement.

“I have confidence he’s the right person to lead sales as we continue to introduce innovative new technology and services to the market.”

Added the spokesperson: “Nick has been a senior leader at SAS for many years, most recently as Sr. Vice President of Sales and Global Field Operations. He has a long tenure at SAS as a country office manager and corporate sales executive and will provide the solid leadership necessary during this transition.”

Lisi takes over a sales team of some 3,700 among the company’s more than 14,000 workers worldwide. Before joining SAS, Lisi worked at EMC, IBM and Xerox, SAS noted in the announcement.

“He has a long tenure at SAS as a country office manager and corporate sales executive,” SAS added. “Lisi brings strength in talent acquisition, metric-driven sales processes and performance management.”

Lisi holds multiple degrees from the University of Toronto.