Nutanix - Afrikan Heroes

Nutanix Appoints Alex Russell to Regional Sales Manager for SADC

April 26, 2023

Regional Sales Manager, SADC for Nutanix Alex Russell

Alex Russell has been appointed as Regional Sales Manager, SADC for Nutanix, a South African based leader in hybrid multicloud computing. Russell will focus on the sales and team management of the region, developing the company’s customer base in SADC, supporting its regional channel, and delivering on the growing need for solutions to support a consistent cloud operating model via a single platform to run applications and data from anywhere.

Russell brings with him close to two decades of management experience within the IT sector, including the successful development of a startup specialising in designing and implementing Citrix solutions and its eventual sale to EOH. At EOH, he held key management roles and jointly led the merger between EOH Technology Solutions and Aptronics into the iOCO brand of EOH. He joins Nutanix from his role as Head of Enterprise Sales for Citrix in Sub-Saharan Africa, where he was responsible for driving transformative and value-driven approaches through the delivery of digital workspace environments.

“The African region remains a strategic and exciting part of Nutanix’s Emerging Markets portfolio. It is also a market where the value and cost efficiency of our solutions allows our customers to outstrip their competitors and really raise the bar on service delivery to their clients,” says Nir Hollander, Sales Director, MED & SSA at Nutanix. “We are excited to welcome Alex to our team and believe that with his management, client, technical, and result-driven experience, he will assist us in delivering impactful, meaningful, and relevant solutions to our customers in Africa.

“With Africa facing so many unique challenges, from power to skills shortages and even supply chain constraints, it is essential that we have local knowledge supporting local businesses. Alex will play an important role in helping ensure our value proposition resonates locally while developing key partnerships with our customers and our channel,” adds Hollander.

“I am honoured to join Nutanix. It is a company that not only offers enormous value through its technologies but also has an incredible company culture and people-centric approach to business,” states Russell. “Speaking to customers and seeing the worth they are generating from their Nutanix investment has been incredible. And I am looking forward to working with my team to develop Nutanix in SADC as the go-to organisation for employees and a trusted partner for customers, channel partners, and alliances.”

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry

Nutanix Appoints New CFO

April 18, 2022

Nutanix, a leader in hybrid multi-cloud computing, today announced the appointment of Rukmini Sivaraman as Chief Financial Officer (CFO), effective May 1, 2022.

Sivaraman will succeed Duston Williams, who is leaving to become CFO of a pre-IPO company in a different space. Williams will remain with Nutanix through April 30, 2022, and work closely with Sivaraman to facilitate a seamless transition.

Rukmini Sivaraman Chief Financial Officer — Rukmini Sivaraman, Chief Financial Officer

Sivaraman joined Nutanix in 2017 and currently serves as SVP of Financial Planning & Analysis. In this role, Sivaraman has been responsible for financial and strategic planning, budgeting, capital allocation and business analytics and insights.

Sivaraman has held several roles instrumental to the Company’s growth and transformation, including Chief People Officer, and before that SVP of People and Business Operations, focusing on revenue growth, capital allocation, and all aspects of human resources.

Among her recent accomplishments, she played a leading role in the transaction under which Nutanix received a $750 million investment from Bain Capital in September 2020. Sivaraman brings a combination of extensive finance and technology experience, having previously spent eight years as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs in New York, executing strategic transactions, including IPOs, mergers & acquisitions, and debt financing transactions for software companies.

Sivaraman has an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, and an MS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.

“Rukmini has a unique understanding of our company and industry, along with proven financial acumen, and I am confident she will thrive in the CFO role,” said Rajiv Ramaswami, President, and CEO of Nutanix.

“As SVP of FP&A, Rukmini has been instrumental in evaluating and pursuing value-enhancing growth opportunities and overseeing our financial planning. Rukmini’s compelling financial, strategic, operational, human capital and engineering expertise will be a valuable asset as we continue to deliver on our long-term growth and profitability commitments. Rukmini’s appointment also reflects the deep bench of talent we have cultivated at Nutanix. Supported by our talented finance team, we look forward to benefiting from Rukmini’s expertise and insights as we continue to build on our strong financial position and create value for our shareholders.”

“We are incredibly grateful to Duston for the many contributions he has made to Nutanix during his time as CFO,” added Ramaswami.

“Since joining Nutanix in 2014, Duston has played an instrumental role in our success. He guided Nutanix through our IPO in 2016 and was critical to the planning for, and execution of, our transition to a subscription business model, which will position Nutanix for future sustainable, profitable growth and value creation. I especially appreciated his support and partnership during my transition to Nutanix in December 2020. His hard work and leadership have earned him this exciting new opportunity and we look forward to cheering him on in the future.”

“I am honoured and excited to take on the CFO role during this important time at Nutanix,” said Sivaraman.

“I look forward to continuing to work closely with Rajiv and the leadership team as we execute on our financial objectives, enhance shareholder value, and position the Company for long-term success. I also look forward to continued engagement with our investor and analyst community. I thank Duston for his mentorship and support, which have positioned me and the rest of the finance and accounting team to take the reins and continue driving our initiatives forward.”

Nutanix also confirmed that the financial performance for its fiscal quarter ending April 30, 2022, and the fiscal year ending July 31, 2022, is expected to be on track with the guidance that the Company shared on March 2, 2022.

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry

Why South African Businesses Adopted Hybrid Cloud at Increasing Rate In 2020

April 18, 2021

There is new evidence to show that South African businesses adopted hybrid cloud at an enormous rate in 2020 coinciding with the lockdown. This was according to a report by Nutanix, a leader in private cloud, hybrid, and multicloud computing of the local data from its third global Enterprise Cloud Index survey, showing how South African companies compare with the rest of the globe regarding their hybrid cloud adoption in 2020.

Rowen Grierson, Sales Director, Sub-Saharan Africa, Nutanix

South African organisations are still transitioning to a hybrid cloud infrastructure, and for most organisations, these transitions do not happen overnight. Legacy applications may justify keeping older infrastructure for a time or require re-platforming skills that organisations may not have access to. According to the report, 50% of South Africa organisations run private cloud-only or a non-integrated mix of private, public and traditional infrastructure models.

Key Findings show that hybrid cloud is the ideal IT operating model for most respondents in South Africa and elsewhere, with most IT respondents (88%) locally and globally (87%) reporting that the hybrid cloud is the ideal infrastructure model for their organisation.

South Africa is ahead in decommissioning or evolving its legacy data centres. Only 14% of respondents locally reported running traditional non-cloud-enabled data centres exclusively compared to the global average of 18%. Penetration in South Africa is expected to drop to just 3% within the next five years, while the use of hybrid cloud is expected to increase by 31% over the same period.

IT shops in South Africa favour private cloud and hyperconverged infrastructure, with local respondents reporting that they are running more applications in private clouds (38%) than public (29%) than their global counterparts who report a slight preference for public clouds. This may explain why South Africa is also ahead in hyperconverged infrastructure deployments, with 57% indicating that they have either fully deployed or are in the process of deploying it.

Another 33% plan to do so in the next 12 to 24 months. Comparatively, over two-thirds (69%) of global ECI respondents running hybrid cloud said they’re also operating or in the process of deploying hyperconverged infrastructure; by contrast, 40% of those running mixed-model infrastructures and 50% of those running traditional said they too will roll out HCI.

A strong customer focus is driving infrastructure changes in South Africa, and 62% of respondents cited the ability to better support their customers as the reason to move to cloud-enabled infrastructure, compared to a 46% global average. Interestingly, while cost savings were less important globally, more respondents in South Africa selected it as a factor (51%) than any other country polled (the second highest being the UK at 45%).

The global pandemic has also raised IT’s profile, and accelerated cloud adoption as 82% of South African respondents said that COVID-19 has caused IT to be viewed more strategically in their organisations. As a result, 60% reported an increase in hybrid cloud investment compared to 46% globally. Local respondents specifically stated that their top priorities, because of COVID-19, are implementing 5G (61%), improving IT infrastructure (55%), improving business continuity (54%) and work-from-home capabilities (53%). Something the local Nutanix team confirms, as use cases for these technologies are on the rise.

“The data speaks for itself and is a firm testimony to what we see unfolding in the local market. That is that private clouds that marry themselves to a hybrid or multicloud universe are the preferred future infrastructure for African businesses,” said Rowen Grierson, Sales Director, Sub-Saharan Africa, Nutanix.

“If we consider the data, the next five years in Africa will be an exciting time for IT and the cloud. While we still face challenges such as data sovereignty, compliance and a sparse public cloud footprint, we are turning this to our favour as we lead the charge in hybrid cloud adoption.

“There is a wealth of opportunity in the region, and whether or not a single IT model ends up being the only infrastructure, it’s clear that companies in Africa have a clear view of how the cloud journey will unfold in their business,” ends Grierson.

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry

Nutanix Appoints New Senior Director of Multicloud Business Development

April 11, 2021

Nutanix has announced the appointment of James Karuttykaran as Senior Director of Multicloud Business Development for EMEA. In his new role, he will be responsible for developing strategic partnerships with leading players in the public cloud. He reports directly to Andy Brewerton, Director of Sales Strategy for EMEA at Nutanix.

In this new position, Karuttykaran is expected to put his expertise in Nutanix technologies to work for the company’s customers’ multicloud deployment needs. His priority will be to strengthen Nutanix’s relationship with Microsoft to facilitate the deployment of European customers’ infrastructure and workloads on Azure.

Karuttykaran joined Nutanix at the creation of the French office in March 2014 as a pre-sales engineer. He quickly rose through the ranks to become Nutanix’s Senior Director Systems Engineering Southern Europe and French-speaking Africa, responsibilities he held prior to this new promotion. Before joining Nutanix, he spent 6 years at VMware where he held various pre-sales, customer and partner positions, followed by 2 years at HDS as a virtualization specialist.

With initial training in electronics and industrial computing at the University of Cergy Pontoise, Karuttykaran continued his training with a work-study program in computer science at the CFA Léonard de Vinci at Veritas Software, a company he later joined in 2003 as a technical support engineer.

Nutanix has appointed Andrew Gill as Channel Director for Western Europe & Sub-Saharan Africa (WEURSSA). Responsible for leading all channel and OEM activities in WEURSSA, Gill will oversee Nutanix’s go-to-market relationships with resellers, distributors, regional system integrators and technology partners in the region.

Additionally, he will play a key role in driving channel-focused initiatives such as Nutanix Cloud Bundles, a strategic and unified offering to access Nutanix enterprise cloud software and solutions, while providing partners with greater value and autonomy through the sales channel.

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry