Image via VMware

A couple days after snatching two top execs from Citrix and promoting company veteran Kit Colbert to CTO of End-User Computing, VMware is continuing its executive shuffle with the appointment of Ben Fathi as chief technology officer. The move doesn’t come as too big of a surprise seeing that he was next in line for the position as vice president of vSphere.

Fathi started his career with the virtualization stalwart in 2012 after a three-year stint at Cisco, where he headed the development of network operating systems. He previously spent five years at Microsoft, starting out as general manager of storage and availability and moving up the corporate ladder to become head of security. Before that, he held various senior leadership and engineering positions with a long line of tech companies including Silicon Graphics.

Fathi holds a master’s degree in computer science and a bachelor’s in psychology from the University of Massachusetts. More importantly, he has 30 years of IT industry experience under his belt, much of it spent managing engineering teams and leading product strategy. With both technical and leadership chops, Fathi is well equipped to handle the responsibilities of a CTO, but he will face unique challenges as the rapid commoditization of the traditional virtualization stack drives VMware deeper into the public cloud and the software-led data center.

Fathi is replacing Steve Herrod, who served as the company’s chief technology officer from 2008 to 2013.

“As we continue to simplify IT complexity across the entire datacenter for our customers, we depend on technology leaders, such as Ben Fathi, to deliver a focus on innovation combined with a proven track record of delivering high-quality products,” commented VMware CEO and theCUBE alumnus Pat Gelsinger. “I am pleased and excited to have Ben serve as VMware’s CTO where he will lead innovative product development and programs, collaborate with the academic community and provide leadership across our R&D community for years to come.”