American cloud computing and virtualization technology company VMware has named India-born top executive and company veteran Rangarajan (Raghu) Raghuram as the next chief executive officer (CEO). An IIT-Bombay graduate and an MBA from Wharton, Raghuram is likely to assume charge in June.
According to top company sources, the appointment of Raghuram is speculated to have led to the exit of his India-born colleague Sanjay Poonen, who said he was quitting after seven years at the Dell-owned company.
Raghuram and Poonen were chief operating officers at VMware and both had been in the race for the top job, which fell vacant after former CEO Pat Gelsinger joined chip maker Intel as chief executive in January.
With the announcement of Raghuram being elevated as CEO, he now joins an elite club of India-born executives, including Google’s Sundar Pichai, IBM’s Arvind Krishna, Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, and Adobe’s Shantanu Narayen, who are heading global technology companies.
“I am thrilled to have Raghu step into the role of CEO at VMware. Throughout his career, he has led with integrity and conviction, playing an instrumental role in the success of VMware,” Michael Dell, chairman, VMware Board of Directors said adding that “Raghu is now in a position to architect VMware’s future, helping customers and partners accelerate their digital businesses in this multi-cloud world.”
Since joining VMware in 2003, Raghuram has helped steer the company’s strategic direction and its technology evolution. According to the company, Raghuram, helped grow the core virtualization business, drove VMware’s software-defined data center strategy, constructed and guided VMware’s cloud computing business and SaaS transformation efforts, played a pivotal role in the company’s M&A strategy, and has been key in driving partnerships with Dell Technologies, hyper-scalers, and other strategic partners, the company said in a statement.
“VMware is uniquely poised to lead the multi-cloud computing era with an end-to-end software platform spanning clouds, the data center, and the edge, helping to accelerate our customers’ digital transformations,” Raghuram said.
He joined VMware in August 2003 after brief stints at Bang Networks and Netscape, among the world’s first companies to build a web browser.
