Hortonworks Inc. is refreshing its sales team with the appointment of industry veteran Rajnish Verma as its new president and chief operating officer.

The new president, who was previously COO of enterprise software company TIBCO Software Inc., will be tasked with advancing Hortonworks’ global sales strategy and execution, and will oversee sales, sales engineering, channel, professional services, training and marketing, the company said.

Verma takes over the role from ex-President Herb Cunitz, who departed Hortonworks last August in the wake of a disappointing second quarter earnings report. During that quarter, Hortonworks said it missed out on a number of sales deals that were in the pipeline, racked up losses of $64.2 million, and saw its share price disintegrate, falling by more than 25 percent in a matter of hours. As a result, Cunitz promptly left, ostensibly to seek a chief executive role elsewhere, though most analysts believe his departure was linked to the company’s poor performance.

Since then, sales teams have been reporting directly to Hortonworks CEO Rob Bearden, who said that the company would reorganize by shifting its most effective revenue-generating salespeople to key accounts. Bearden said in a statement that Verma was “instrumental” in taking TIBCO from $300 million to more than $1 billion in annual revenues.

“Raj is a proven sales leader and has successfully scaled enterprise sales teams to significantly accelerate revenue growth,” Bearden said. “I … know he has the right experience to further propel Hortonworks on its mission to manage the world’s data.”

Verma’s own statement failed to shed much light on what changes he might want to make once he gets his feet under the desk. Still, it’s clear that Verma will have his work cut out getting the company’s global sales force back on track. In its third-quarter earnings call, Hortonworks announced losses of $64.4 million, saying it did “not expect to be profitable in the near future.” On the bright side, the company said it did retain total assets of $167.7 million, and that it would continue to invest in its “operational and administrative functions including, but not limited to, our customer support organization that provides the basis for customer retention and further expansion.”

Hortonworks’ share price rose by 1.2 percent following the announcement of Verma’s hire, hinting at some mild optimism about the move from shareholders.

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