Poly, the UC provider, has appointed Darrius Jones as executive vice president of strategy. Jones reports to Poly’s president and chief executive officer, Joe Burton, and will serve on the company’s senior leadership team.

Poly’s Darrius Jones

“Darrius joins us at the right time as we build the future of the unified communications technology industry by creating new ways to hear, see, work and work together,” said Burton.

Jones will set the company’s strategic direction, taking advantage of new and emerging technologies to deliver exceptional customer experiences. As a futurist and expert on the consumer journey, Jones will focus on four primary areas: reimagining how workspaces can intuitively work for everyone, helping people collaborate no matter what cloud collaboration tool they prefer, designing mobile-first solutions for the modern office and advancing cloud services that help IT pros and users get more out of their devices.

Jones brings more than 20 years of digital, unified communications and customer care experience leading operations, research, and strategy organizations. Prior to joining Poly, he held roles at Cisco Systems, Merrill Lynch and Computershare. He came to Poly from USAA, where as vice president and head of USAA Labs, he was responsible for the company’s innovation portfolio and educational research partnerships as well as integration of the startup community to deliver industry-leading solutions across banking insurance and investment companies within USAA Inc.

Senior vice president of strategic alliances and partnerships, Cary Bran, who has more than 17 years of experience in developing advanced concept communications technologies, will continue to spearhead key partner alliances for Poly within the strategy office.

Jones’s appointment follows the March rebranding of headset-maker Plantronics as Poly. The company transformed into a technology company after acquiring the communication technology company Polycom last year.