VMware Board of Directors Appoints Raghu Raghuram as CEO

VMware announced that its Board of Directors has appointed Rangarajan (Raghu) Raghuram as Chief Executive Officer and member of the Board of Directors, effective June 1, 2021. An industry veteran, Raghuram is a strategic business leader who currently holds the position of Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Products and Cloud Services at VMware.

 “I am thrilled to have Raghu step into the role of CEO at VMware. Throughout his career, he has led with integrity and conviction, playing an instrumental role in the success of VMware,” commented Michael Dell, chairman of the VMware Board of Directors. “Raghu is now in position to architect VMware’s future, helping customers and partners accelerate their digital businesses in this multi-cloud world.”

Since joining VMware in 2003, Raghuram has helped steer the company’s strategic direction and its technology evolution throughout VMware’s rich history. He helped grow the core virtualization business, drove VMware’s software defined data center strategy, constructed and guided VMware’s cloud computing business and SaaS transformation efforts, played a pivotal role in the company’s M&A strategy, and has been key in driving partnerships with Dell Technologies, hyper-scalers and other strategic partners.

“VMware is uniquely poised to lead the multi-cloud computing era with an end-to-end software platform spanning clouds, the data center and the edge, helping to accelerate our customers’ digital transformations,” said Raghu Raghuram. “I am honored, humbled and excited to have been chosen to lead this company to a new phase of growth. We have enormous opportunity, we have the right solutions, the right team, and we will continue to execute with focus, passion, and agility.”

“After a thorough and thoughtful search, the Board concluded that Raghu is the best person to lead the company as CEO, because he embodies our innovative culture, represents our values, and has a clear vision for VMware’s future,” said Paul Sagan, VMware’s lead independent director. “We also want to thank Zane Rowe for his leadership as Interim CEO and the crucial role he plays continuing as CFO.”

VMware also announced that Sumit Dhawan has been named President, leading all go-to-market functions including Worldwide Sales, Worldwide Partner and Commercial Organization, Customer Experience and Success (CXS), Marketing, and Communications. With his broad experience building and scaling subscription businesses and his customer-centric orientation, Dhawan is ideally suited to take on leadership of these teams. Dhawan currently serves as Senior Vice President and Chief Customer Officer at VMware where he has helped design the business strategy for emerging multi-cloud and subscriptions offerings, transforming how VMware’s customers can consume VMware services.

Sanjay Poonen, currently Chief Operating Officer, Customer Operations, has made the personal decision to leave VMware after his 7 years at the company, most recently leading Customer Operations and prior to that leading End-User Computing. “On behalf of the Board and the company, we thank Sanjay for his many contributions to VMware and wish him well in his future endeavors,” commented Sagan.

"I extend my warm congratulations to Raghu on his promotion to CEO and know he will take the company to new heights," commented Sanjay Poonen, Chief Operating Officer, Customer Operations, VMware. "I will be cheering on the company’s success, as I embark on my next adventure."

Preliminary Results for Q1, Fiscal Year 2022

Revenue for the first quarter of fiscal 2022 is expected to be $2.994 billion, an increase of 9.5% from the first quarter of fiscal 2021.

The combination of Subscription and SaaS and license revenue is expected to be $1.387 billion, an increase of 12.5% from the first quarter of fiscal 2021.

GAAP operating margin for the first quarter is expected to be 18.7%, and non-GAAP operating margin is expected to be 30.8%.

GAAP net income per diluted share is expected to be $1.01 per diluted share, and non-GAAP net income per diluted share is expected to be $1.76 per diluted share.

Additional details regarding VMware’s first quarter financial results will be announced after market close on Thursday, May 27, 2021. The company will host a conference call at 1:30 p.m. PT/ 4:30 p.m. ET that day to review financial results and business outlook. A live web broadcast of the event will be available on the VMware Investor Relations website at http://ir.vmware.com. The replay of the webcast will be available for two months.