Data storage firm Western Digital Corp. has appointed Cisco Systems Inc. executive David Goeckeler as its new chief executive officer.

Goeckeler (pictured), who currently heads up Cisco’s $34 billion networking and security business, will begin his new job March 9, replacing the outgoing Steve Milligan, who announced his retirement in October.

The new CEO is credited with transforming Cisco’s networking and security strategy and transitioning that business to a software and recurring revenue-based model.

“With experience as a software engineer as well as running large semiconductor development projects, his breadth of technology expertise, business acumen and history of building and operating world-class organizations make him the right person to lead Western Digital in a world increasingly driven by applications and data,” Matthew Massengill, chairman of Western Digital’s board, said in a statement.

Although it has had its ups and downs over the years, Western Digital has generally performed well under Milligan, who took over the reins at the company in 2015 and oversaw its record-breaking $19 billion acquisition of rival storage firm SanDisk Corp. that same year.

In recent months, however, the company has taken a turn for the worse, registering a net loss in its last two quarters amid a general slump in the overall storage market. One of Goeckeler’s first tasks will be to address this decline, and he said he was optimistic that conditions now are ideal for the company to turn things around.

“The industry is facing an exciting inflection point where customers of every size, vertical and geography are deploying business infrastructure that is software-driven, enabled by data and powered by the cloud,” Goeckeler said. “This megatrend has only just now reached an initial stage of adoption and will drive a massive wave of new opportunity. Western Digital is strongly positioned to capitalize on this.”

Analyst Charles King of Pund-IT Inc. told SiliconANGLE that the tech industry is well-acquainted with CEOs who come in to companies in trouble and execute turnaround strategies that restore them to health and profitability. But he said executives who take on solid but somewhat lackluster organizations and get them back in fighting trim are far less common.

“As his success at Cisco proves, David Goeckler clearly fits this latter category and he’s an excellent candidate for Western Digital,” King said. “Western Digital has had trouble establishing a place for itself in emerging markets, such as IoT and edge computing, which are highly dependent on innovative storage and memory technologies. But Goeckler clearly knows how to run a multibillion-dollar business while retooling it for new opportunities.”

The new CEO will get some assistance for the time being, as Milligan plans to stay on as an adviser until September to help ensure a smooth transition, the company said.

“It’s all about execution for the traditional IT suppliers like Western Digital, which needs to grow new offerings while key existing workloads and revenue gets shifted to cloud,” said Holger Mueller, an analyst with Constellation Research Inc.

Photo: Western Digital