Suresh Vasudevan CEO, Nimble Storage

Nimble Storage announced Suresh Vasudevan has been appointed the company’s new CEO.

 Vasudevan spent nearly a decade at NetApp in a wide range of executive positions, and followed that with a successful stint running Omneon, a digital storage company for the media industry which was acquired at the end of 2010 under his leadership. This announcement comes on the heels of Nimble Storage’s placement on The Wall Street Journal‘s The Next Big Thing list. Since its launch in July of 2010, Nimble Storage has more than tripled its revenue against aggressive projections and gained widespread adoption by enterprises for its unique approach to primary storage, backup and disaster recovery.

"As one of our board members since 2009, Suresh has been instrumental in helping bring Nimble Storage’s solution to market," said Varun Mehta, founder and former CEO of Nimble Storage. "Suresh’s leadership skills, track record, and cultural fit make him the perfect leader to take Nimble Storage to the next level. I expect this to be a seamless transition, and I will remain deeply involved in the company, focusing my efforts on driving engineering innovation and future product development."

Vasudevan was most recently CEO of Omneon, which he navigated through the challenging period in the media industry in decades, and ultimately led the company to a successful acquisition by Harmonic in late 2010. Prior to Omneon, he was senior vice president of product operations at NetApp and also a member of the company’s executive team, overseeing all product operations for the NetApp product portfolio. During a decade-long career at NetApp, Vasudevan led the company’s product strategy and product development, and was a key architect of the steady expansion of NetApp’s product portfolio into new markets. At the helm of NetApp’s Decru subsidiary in 2006, he led the team that grew Decru‘s revenues from $6 million to $45 million in one year. Prior to NetApp, Vasudevan worked at the management consulting firm McKinsey & Co. in New Delhi, Mumbai and Chicago as a senior engagement manager, focusing on product marketing, operations and marketing strategy.

"Nimble Storage has achieved remarkable early success, and I couldn’t be more thrilled to be joining the team," said Vasudevan. "If incumbent storage vendors had the opportunity to shed their legacy systems and rebuild their core architectures, they would have taken the approach that Nimble Storage did. Our next challenge is to double the team this year to capitalize on a huge market opportunity and ultimately drive the business toward IPO."