Avaya, which recently moved HQ to Triangle, names VC to its board

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK — Avaya Holdings Corp., a multinational information and technology company that recently relocaed its headquarters to the Triangle from California, named Rob Theis, a general partner of the venture capital firm World Innovation Lab, to its board of directors, increasing its size to eight members, the company announced on Monday.

Theis is also an independent lead director of RingCentral, Inc., a cloud-based communication company based in California that has a strategic partnership with Avaya. He also serves on the board at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif. He has served on the management teams of technology companies such as New Era Networks, Sun Microsystems and Silicon Graphics.

Bill Watkins, Avaya board chairperson, said in a Monday press release that Theis brings insights on topics like innovation, entrepreneurship and growth in the cloud to Avaya’s board.

“He has considerable experience in supporting strategic initiatives and identifying opportunities for market differentiation that align well with Avaya’s objective to increase shareholder value by advancing our position as a cloud and SaaS leader,” Watkins added.

RingCentral and Avaya announced their strategic partnership in October 2019. According to the partnership, RingCentral is the exclusive provider of unified communications as a service (UCaaS) solution for Avaya.

Shares of Avaya stock were trading at $18.46 Monday morning, up 88 cents, or 5.01 percent.

The press release is available here.

This story is from the North Carolina Business News Wire, a service of UNC-Chapel Hill’s School of Media and Journalism.