Volker Smid serves as President, General Manager of Novell EMEA. He is responsible for the full range of Novell's sales and consulting business across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Smid was named general manager for Central Europe for Novell in May 2005, responsible for Novell's overall business in Germany, Austria and Eastern Europe. Prior to joining Novell, Smid was senior vice president, EMEA and Asia Pacific, at PTC, where he was responsible for the product life cycle and enterprise content management company's mid-market business. Smid also served as vice president for North America at POET AG, a platform provider for B2B eCommerce and supplier relationship management, and CEO of Prompt Medizinische Informationssysteme, a German software vendor.

He has an MSc in Computer Science — "Diplom- Informatiker (FH)" — from the University for Applied Sciences, Hamburg-Wedel.