Pure Storage CRO, Former VMware Exec Jumps Ship To Nutanix
‘He certainly knows the competition well, having been in a leadership role at both VMware and Cisco,’ says Tim Joyce, president and CEO of Roundstone Solutions.
Nutanix is adding another VMware veteran to its leadership team as Dominick Delfino is leaving Pure Storage to join the hyperconverged infrastructure star as Nutanix’s new chief revenue officer.
“The market opportunities in both hyperconverged infrastructure and hybrid multi-cloud spaces are boundless, as is my enthusiasm for the company and [CEO] Rajiv Ramaswami,” said Delfino in a LinkedIn post today.
Tim Joyce, president and CEO of Roundstone Solutions, an Orinda, Calif.-based Nutanix partner, said Delfino should be a “great fit” for Nutanix.
“He certainly knows the competition well, having been in a leadership role at both VMware and Cisco,” said Joyce. “Nutanix has great technology that belongs in almost every customer environment. Hiring Delfino gives them someone with the right background to get the Nutanix sales efforts to be more aggressive again. That’s been needed.”
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Delfino was previously Pure Storage’s CRO for the past year. He was responsible for leading and growing Pure Storage’s sales organization and all routes to market as well as defining differentiated go-to-market strategies.
However, Delfino also played a major role at VMware from 2014 to 2020.
Just one year ago, Delfino was senior vice president and general manager of the Americas at VMware, with extensive experience selling vSAN and VMware Cloud Foundation.
VMware is Nutanix’s main competitive rival in the red-hot hyperconverged infrastructure software market as well as around hybrid cloud software solutions. Rajiv Ramaswami became Nutanix’s CEO in late 2020 following a four-year executive stint as VMware’s global chief operating officer of products and services.
Over his six-year tenure at VMware, Delfino also held the executive role of senior vice president of worldwide sales for VMware’s Software-Defined Data Center (SDDC) business.
Today we announced that Dominick Delfino will be our new CRO @Nutanix. He’s the perfect person for this role. His clear strategic orientation, passion and enthusiasm are balanced with a lens of execution and discipline. Looking forward to working with you again @domdelfino! https://t.co/LShOEswvvP
— Rajiv Ramaswami (@RajivRamaswami) November 3, 2021
Delfino will begin his new CRO role at Nutanix on Dec. 6.
Delfino could not be reached for comment by press time. He replaces Nutanix’s former CRO Chris Kaddaras who left the company last week to pursue a new opportunity.
In additional to his Pure Storage and VMware roles, Delfino’s had a long stint at networking giant Cisco from 2000 to 2014. Delfino played a key role in the leadership team that built Cisco’s data center business, Nutanix said.
Delfino said he’s admired Nutanix for its “industry-defining technology, strong customer-centric culture,” and large market opportunity.
“Given the simplicity, flexibility and resilience of Nutanix’s powerful cloud platform, I see tremendous opportunity to build on Nutanix’s strong foundation and continue expanding its loyal partner and customer base,” said Delfino. “I’m excited to join this talented team to deliver exceptional customers satisfaction and drive revenue growth.”
For the first time since 2004, VMware became an independent company this week following its spin-off from Dell Technologies.
VMware is looking to become the world leader in multi-cloud software, which pins the company against Nutanix who is investing in building a larger cloud portfolio of solutions. Both VMware and Nutanix are shifting toward becoming software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies.
“While saying goodbye is never easy—thank you to my Pure Storage family—I’m looking forward to connecting with my new team, customers, partners and peers,” said Delfino.