"Named" in this context means his name was released. That normally occurs after a person is offered a job role, accepted it, and then that information is released to everybody else.
By way of example, the expression is also sometimes used in connection with crimes - "the suspect/victim has been named as John Doe" - and this can sometimes occur quite some time after the person is known to or has been arrested by the police. "Naming" them is the act of making that information known to a wider audience.
A person being "appointed" to a job role would normally be considered to occur when that person actually begins working in the role, in which case their appointment could come a while after they are named as a successful candidate.
You should use "named as", if you are using it for the purpose I described above, that is to describe the act of releasing the person's name to the public. Without the word "as" it reads as if the person has been given the name of "Senior Vice President", which is of course not a name but a title. If though you mean to describe the act of placing someone into a job role, you should perhaps say they were "appointed", in which case you wouldn't need to use "as" (see this question for an accepted answer to that)