Cohesity replaces CEO Mohit Aron with Sanjay Poonen

Cohesity replaces CEO Mohit Aron with Sanjay Poonen

Mohit Aron steps down as CEO of Cohesity. The executive passes the baton to Sanjay Poonen, former COO of VMware and ex-president of SAP. Aron will remain at the company as its CTO and CPO. The change comes at a peculiar time.

Cohesity provides backup and data management services. Its market value was estimated at €3.2 billion at the end of 2021. Cohesity announced plans for an IPO in the same period. The plans have yet to be realized.

The delay has several reasons. The market struggles with inflation and supply chain problems. Investors hold back. Conditions are anything but favourable for an IPO.

Yet, the market only seems to be a part of the problem for Cohesity. The organization said goodbye to more than twenty executives in the past three years. These include three SVPs, nine VPs and a CTO. CEO Mohit Aron is now also stepping down.

Aron informed Techzine that his position changed on August 1. Aron remains active for Cohesity as CTO and CPO. Sanjay Poonen takes over as CEO. Poonen was previously the COO of VMware and also served a stint at SAP.

Internal struggles

Aron did not elaborate on the reason for the change. The rather turbulent times the company appears to be in, or at least has been, may play a role. Website Futuriom spoke with several Cohesity employees who indicate the changes of management had a negative impact on the company culture. It’s possible that Poonen takes over in an attempt to create stability. Another reason for a change like this is that some CEOs are more suited to guide companies through fast growth than others. Founder Aron may have realized that as well. Something similar happened in November of last year at Splunk.

The timing of the news wasn’t left to chance, so it appears. Yesterday, on August 1st, Cohesity once again secured a spot in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Backup and Recovery Software Solutions. This shows that Cohesity’s technology is clearly appreciated by analysts and customers. It will be interesting to see if the change brings back stability, guides the company through faster growth, and will make the IPO a reality within the foreseeable future.

Tip: Cohesity Backup-as-a-Service available in Europe now, aims to remove complexity