Longtime Dell Technologies executive and general manager of Dell’s federal business, Jim Kelly, has jumped ship to lead Google’s public sector business.

Dell Technologies’ general manager and senior vice president of the company’s federal business, Jim Kelly, has departed the infrastructure giant to help lead Google’s public sector business.

“Today marks the beginning of my journey as the new Vice President of Federal at Google Public Sector,” said Kelly in a LinkedIn post.

Kelly is a longtime Dell federal executive, having worked at the Round Rock, Texas-based company for nearly 24 years. For the past decade, he worked in top federal and sales roles at Dell, including vice president of Department of Defense and Intelligence Sales.

In his latest role leading Dell Technologies’ multibillion-dollar North American federal sales business, Kelly was responsible for Dell’s full portfolio of client solutions, enterprise systems, software, and services aimed at the U.S. federal customers globally. Kelly could not be reached for comment by press time.

[Related: Google Public Sector Exec Says Program Enhancements Bring ‘Significant Opportunity; For Partners]

In an email to CRN, Google Cloud said Kelly was responsible for supporting Dell’s federal customers and their missions, providing the technology and expertise needed to transform and protect their data.

“We’re thrilled for both the wealth of experience and great passion for delivering transformational technology to the public sector that Jim brings,” said Brent Mitchell, vice president of go-to-market, public sector for Google Cloud, on LinkedIn. “His perspectives align incredibly well with our mission to deliver cutting-edge solutions that address our customers’ most challenging missions.”

Google Public Sector Just Launched Enhanced Partner Program

Google’s Public Sector division was launched in 2022 with the goal of providing cloud platforms and AI tools to help federal, state and local governments, intelligence agencies and educational institutions accelerate digital transformation initiatives.

This month, Troy Bertram—Google Public Sector’s executive managing director of partner ecosystem—talked about Google revamping the Google Public Sector Partner Program.

“[We want to] make it easier for a partner to register an opportunity with us and have differentiated support if they’re the incumbent or they’re pursuing and working on shaping an opportunity,” Bertram told CRN. “Most IT projects in government are 80 percent services and 20 percent infrastructure.”

Bertram said Google took “feedback and iterating on partner program requirements for government and education customers via the channel.”

“We had to take what works out of (the umbrella) Google Partner Advantage program and public sector-ize it,” he said. “To make sure that how government wants to contract, buy for services, buy for infrastructure, buy for technology, especially with AI and new companies launching applications on top of our platform.”

Jim Kelly’s Dell, Microsoft And Symantec Career

With almost 30 years of experience, Kelly brings extensive market leadership and sales experience to the Google Public Sector team thanks to his background in working with federal customers on their technology strategies.

Google Cloud said Kelly’s understanding of the federal enterprise and program strategies, credibility with federal decision-makers, and extensive relationships with industry partners, allows him to assist federal customers in achieving their goals.

Prior to Dell, Kelly was Microsoft’s senior director for the company’s U.S. Army business for 18 months. He was responsible for product sales, strategy development, and oversight of services sales into one of Microsoft’s largest customers, the U.S. Army.

Before joining Microsoft in 2014, Kelly did a short six-month stint at cybersecurity firm Symantec where he was responsible for sales and management of the U.S. Army and defense agencies business.

The bulk of Kelly’s career has been spent at Dell.

From 1999 until 2013, he worked at Dell in the federal sector managing the U.S. Army and Department of Defense joint solution sales organizations. Kelly managed the largest team in Dell and worked with all aspects of the business, according to Google Cloud.

“Looking forward to the new challenges and opportunities that lie ahead [at Google Cloud],” said Kelly.