VMware reshuffles top deck to drive growth

Virtualisation bigwigs Carl Eschenbach and Jonathan Chadwick to share COO role in partner-inspired rejig

VMware has rejigged its top flight of executives in a move it claims will drive growth and better reflect its relationships with partners and customers.

Its current president and chief operating officer Carl Eschenbach will take on additional duties of corporate strategy and business development and from now on will share COO duties with chief financial officer Jonathan Chadwick.

Chadwick will retain his CFO role but will take on the responsibility for HR, finance, legal, IT and operations as part of his new COO job share.

VMware claimed the repositioning of the top duo's roles "reflects the growing diversity of the company's relationships with customers, partners and industry stakeholders".

On top of this, the virtualisation giant has promoted its networking CTO Martin Casado – who joined VMware through the acquisition of his firm Nicira in 2012 – to senior vice president of its Networking and Security business unit.

Bill Fathers has been promoted to executive vice president and general manager of the Hybrid Cloud Services arm and Betsy Sutter has been promoted to corporate senior vice president and chief people officer.

VMware's chief executive Pat Gelsinger (pictured) said the moves will drive his firm's growth.

"These executive changes are designed to support our growth, help bring the company's ground-breaking innovations to life, and will also help us more rapidly anticipate and respond to customer needs," he said.