Sanjay Poonen has been named CEO and President of Cohesity, a pioneer in next-generation data management. The Cohesity Board of Directors will also welcome him. Poonen formerly served as SAP’s president and VMware’s chief operating officer (COO).
As founder and chief technology and product officer of Cohesity, Mohit Aron, who has been the company’s CEO since it was founded in 2013, will quicken the company’s product innovation and strategy. Aron will continue to oversee the company’s R&D, support, and services departments as well as the Office of the CTO. He will continue to serve as a director for Cohesity.
Poonen most recently served as COO of VMware, where he handled sales, marketing, services, and alliances. In this capacity, he was instrumental in doubling revenues from about $6 billion to $12 billion. Poonen was also a key architect of several fruitful cloud alliances, including those with AWS, Microsoft, Google, and Oracle. He oversaw the organization’s end-user computing and security divisions, which included the purchase of Carbon Black and AirWatch.
Prior to joining VMware, Poonen was President of SAP, where he oversaw the teams for Applications, Industries, and Platform. He also held technical and sales positions that helped SAP’s revenues more than double, from $10 billion to $20 billion.
