Microsoft said yesterday that it has hired IBM and Sun veteran Robert Youngjohns to head up its North American sales and marketing unit.

British-born Youngjohns, 56, has also been handed the role of corporate vice president of Microsoft and will manage a team of 8,500 sales people, which according to the software behemoth generated revenue of more than $51bn in 2007.

Youngjohns has worked in the IT business for more than 30 years, holding down a variety of key industry sales and marketing jobs.

He spent 18 years at IBM before moving on to Sun Microsystems where he worked for a decade in a number of high-flyer positions.

Most recently, Youngjohns worked at San Jose-based Callidus Software as president and CEO.

Microsoft, which has been looking to fill its US sales head gap since February this year, said Youngjohns will join the software King Kong on 3 December and will report directly to chief operating officer Kevin Turner. ®