Nutanix Nabs VMware, Boomi ‘All-Stars’ To Lead Engineering, Marketing

Nutanix has a new chief marketing officer as well as an engineering guru who played a critical role in building VMware Cloud on AWS.

Nutanix has hired two new top executives hailing from VMware and Boomi to lead the hyperconverged software superstar’s engineering and marketing charge, including the lead engineer for VMware Cloud on AWS.

Shyam Desirazu (pictured above) has left VMware to become Nutanix’s head of engineering, responsible for evolving Nutanix’s technology and platform vision, roadmap, innovation strategy and R&D investments across the portfolio.

Desirazu previously worked at VMware as vice president of engineering for VMware Cloud on AWS. He led a team of over 500 VMware engineers that built VMware Cloud on AWS as well as other cloud solutions.

Desirazu helped customers integrate many flagship VMware products such as vSphere, vSAN, and NSX along with VMware vCenter management to run on AWS infrastructure.

“Many businesses today are grappling with the reality of multi-cloud deployments,” said Desirazu in a statement. “I believe that hybrid multicloud is the future and that Nutanix’s fast-moving culture of innovation is uniquely positioned to help customers navigate today’s cloud complexities, while deploying solutions that help to future-proof IT. The opportunity to lead and build Nutanix’s engineering organization as the industry evolves towards this future is incredibly exciting.”

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Desirazu will work closely with Nutanix President and CEO Rajiv Ramaswami as well as the company’s executive leadership team. With more than 20 years of experience building and scaling world class engineering teams, Desirazu brings deep technical and leadership expertise from positions across early-stage startups, high-growth businesses and large public enterprises.

“After an amazing 3.5 years at VMware, I have accepted a new position as Head of Engineering at Nutanix. I look forward to a great partnership with Rajiv Ramaswami, Thomas Cornely, David Sangster, Tarkan Maner and team,” said Desirazu in a LinkedIn post. “It was an honor and a privilege to have worked with so many amazing people at VMware.”

Nutanix Hires New CMO

Nutanix has also hired a new chief marketing officer in Mandy Dhaliwal, tasked with leading the company’s global marketing strategy around accelerating the adoption enterprise hybrid multi-cloud solutions.

Dhaliwal was previously chief marketing officer at Boomi for the past three years. She brings more than 25 years of experience in driving growth and innovation across software and cloud markets.

“I am very excited about the opportunity to take Nutanix’s industry leading cloud platform to market and showcase how we uniquely enable enterprises to modernize their applications and digitally transform their businesses with speed, simplicity and efficiency,” said Dhaliwal in a statement. “As we move steadily into a hybrid multi-cloud era, I will be laser focused on driving long-term sustainable growth for the Nutanix business and tangible value for our customers.”

As CMO of Boomi, she was responsible for leading, planning and executing the company’s global go-to-market, demand generation, partner marketing, field and product marketing, customer advocacy, events and corporate communications functions.

“A special shout out to my friends and former colleagues at Boomi. Thank you for an epic 3.5+ year ride, I wish you infinite success!” said Dhaliwal on LinkedIn.

Before Boomi, she served as Fugue’s CMO, and held senior marketing leadership positions at BlazeMeter, SOASTA, EMC, and Legato Systems.

Rick Gouin, chief technology officer at Winslow Technology Group, a Waltham, Mass.-based Nutanix partner, said the two new Nutanix executives are a shot in the arm for the company and the channel.

“Those are two highly experienced, industry all-stars,” said Gouin in an email to CRN. “I’m happy Nutanix is bringing top talent on board in two very important channel areas: product innovation and go-to-market.”

Nutanix CEO Ramaswami said both new executives are “exceptional leaders with proven technological savvy and unique insight” into what it takes to build and drive industry leading solutions.

“The addition of Mandy and Shyam to our organization will be instrumental in driving our vision as Nutanix continues its next phase of growth,” Ramaswami said.