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The former VMware executive, Rajiv Ramaswami, is coming into Nutanix as the president and CEO. The announcement was made on Wednesday, as Rajiv replaces co-founder of Nutanix, Dheeraj Pandey, who announced that he was planning to retire in August this year.

The new CEO brings to Nutanix 30 years of experience to the role, having worked with Cisco, IBM, Nortel, and Broadcom.

His most recent work was at VMware as the Chief Operating Officer of products and cloud services. At VMware, Rajiv was able to see Nutanix up close as a competitor, and now, he has the opportunity to lead it into its next phase.

From VMware to Nutanix

Rajiv said that he has long admired Nutanix as a fierce competitor, a pioneer in hyper-converged infrastructure solutions, and a leader in the cloud software space. In his statement, he hopes to build on his knowledge of the industry and grow the company.

The lead independent director at Nutanix, Sohaib Abbasi, says that Rajiv is a great candidate whose experience stood out before he was picked.

Sohaib said that Rajiv set himself apart from other CEO candidates with a rare combination of operational discipline, technology vision, business acumen, and inclusive leadership skills. These qualities make him suitable for the rile.

Rajiv’s appointment is strategically clever

Holger Mueller, an analyst at Constellation Research, says that the hiring is perfectly sensible, as VMware becomes the company’s main competitor. Both companies want the same future. Nutanix is getting an outstanding and talented executive by hiring Rajiv.

Nutanix was founded in 2009 and has raised more than $600 million from firms like Sapphire Ventures, Lightspeed Ventures, Khosla Ventures, Wellington Management, and Fidelity.

The company finally went public in 2016. Investors are happy about Rajiv’s hiring, as the stock price went up 1.29% after he was announced.

Tip: What is Nutanix and how it conquers the hybrid and multi-cloud world