New marketing chief joins SUSE alongside bolstered regional leadership to scale global go-to-market strategy
LUXEMBOURG, Sept. 08, 2025, a global leader in innovative, open and secure enterprise-grade solutions, today announced the appointment of Margaret Dawson as chief marketing officer. In this role, Dawson will drive SUSE's global marketing strategy and expand SUSE's global presence to continue its trajectory of growth, innovation and open source leadership.
"As the demand for choice among enterprise customers grows, SUSE has never been better poised to lead," said DP van Leeuwen, CEO of SUSE. "With a proven track record of scaling technology brands and turning marketing into a true growth engine, I'm confident in Margaret's expertise to accelerate our global leadership and capitalize on this moment."
"I'm excited to return to the world of open source to deepen our relationships with customers and partners, amplify our voice in the market and drive measurable business impact," said Dawson. "SUSE's market opportunity is massive. As it hits 33 years as a leader in enterprise open source software, I'm bullish about SUSE's future."
As CMO, Dawson will lead efforts to define and amplify the company's narrative in the enterprise open source software market, ensuring consistent messaging across brand, product, customer and community touchpoints.
Dawson brings more than 25 years of extensive experience in technology marketing and product strategy. She is a global leader with a passion for technology, building brands and championing increased equality and diversity. Dawson has led successful programs and teams at Fortune 500 companies, including Amazon, Microsoft, HP and Red Hat. Most recently, she served as CMO at Chronosphere, a cloud-native observability platform, where her collaborative efforts vastly increased the company's brand awareness, marketing engagements and revenue.
An acclaimed author and speaker, Dawson frequently shares insights on open source, emerging technologies, leadership and living intentionally. Ranked as one of the top Women in Cloud Computing, she was also named Business Role Model of the Year for Women in IT, Mentor and Coach of the Year in the Stevie Business Awards, and Top 50 Women Leaders of Seattle by Women We Admire.
In addition to the appointment of Margaret Dawson, SUSE bolstered its global go-to-market leadership team with appointments of Dongun Lee, South Korea regional leader; Gen Watanabe, Japan regional leader; Kingsley Wood, head of North America solution architecture; and Joao Pereira, Brazilian public sector leader. SUSE promoted Holger Pfister to VP, DACH region in recognition of work driving SUSE's leadership in Europe at a time when organizations are increasingly looking for sovereign solutions. This expansion of regional expertise will allow SUSE to deliver on customer experience to address local needs.
About SUSE
SUSE is a global leader in innovative, reliable, and secure enterprise open source solutions, including SUSE® Linux Suite, SUSE® Rancher Suite, SUSE® Edge Suite, and SUSE® AI Suite. More than 60% of the Fortune 500 rely on SUSE to power their mission-critical workloads, enabling them to innovate everywhere - from the data center to the cloud, to the edge and beyond. SUSE puts the "open" back in open source, collaborating with partners and communities to give customers the agility to tackle innovation challenges today and the freedom to evolve their strategy and solutions tomorrow. For more information, visit www.suse.com.
Media Contact
Sara Matheson
sara.matheson@suse.com
Rachel Romoff
rachel.romoff@suse.com
