Brocade has appointed Ellen O'Donnell as general counsel and the head of the company's global legal department. She will report directly to Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Carney as a member of the company's executive staff.

O'Donnell brings to Brocade a strong background in corporate governance and diverse industry experience from a career working in corporate legal departments and law firms and with entrepreneurial ventures. Her corporate experience includes roles as SVP and general counsel at Micromuse and associate general counsel at LucasArts.

More recently, O'Donnell has assisted cloud computing and software-as-a-service companies with a variety of complex legal matters including: intellectual property ownership and licensing, privacy, customer agreements, and data security.