VMware Execs Depart As Broadcom Takeover Nears; Trio ‘Drove Much Impact,’ CEO says
“As it happens during such transition, we find some executives decide to move on,” according to the internal memo, which was reported by The Wall Street Journal. “All three have held leadership positions over several years and drove much impact across the business.”
Tom Gillis
Three of VMware’s general managers in the critical areas of cloud infrastructure, networking and security, and applications and management, are departing the company as Broadcom’s $61 billion takeover inches nearer, according to a memo released today by CEO Raghu Raghuram, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The Journal identified the three as Mark Lohmeyer, Ajay Patel, and Tom Gillis. All three men were trusted leaders with the company, having talked about VMware’s strategy with CRN in the past.
“As it happens during such transition, we find some executives decide to move on,” according to the internal memo, the Journal said. “All three have held leadership positions over several years and drove much impact across the business.”
The roles will be filled by other leaders at Palo Alto, Calif.-based VMware, the Journal reported. VMware is “preparing to enter the next phase of growth and evolution as a division of Broadcom during 2023,” Raghuram stated in the memo.
[RELATED: Broadcom’s ‘Initial Focus’ For VMware Will Be To Develop Partnerships, Not R&D: CEO]
Patel was the general manager for VMware’s Modern Applications and Management Business, responsible for strategic planning product and portfolio management, oversight of delivery. He has more than 30 years of enterprise software experience with prior stints at Oracle, Apigee and BEA Systems, and management consulting work with Price Waterhouse Cooper.
Gillis had been senior vice president and general manager of networking and advanced security. Before he worked at VMware, Gillis founded Bracket Computing, and was previously the vice president and general manager of Cisco’s Security Technology Group. Gillis has an electrical engineer degree from Tufts University and an MBA from Harvard University.
Lohmeyer led VMware’s cloud infrastructure business group. He had been at VMware for about 8 years arriving from Veritas Software and previously working Sarnoff Research Labs where he was awarded patents for his work on digital imaging research and hardware design.
Earlier this year, VMware lost two channel leaders in Sandy Hogan, who left to become chief revenue officer of SADA, and Bill Swales, who joined Lenovo as its vice president of commercial sales in North America.
Broadcom’s CEO Hock Tan said last week that the proposed $61 billion deal for VMware has passed regulatory hurdles in Canada, Brazil and South Africa. However its is slowly grinding its way through the FTC where the agency is five months into an extensive “second request” investigation. The European Commission is expected to approve the deal or extend its investigation into the transaction on Dec. 20.