Develop Great Managers

In this podcast, I talk to Kit Colbert, Vice President and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for the Cloud Platform Business Unit at VMware, about his career path.

In his role, Kit is responsible for driving technical strategy and innovation for the vSphere, VMware Cloud on AWS, and VMware Cloud on DellEMC product lines.

Previously, Kit was GM of Cloud-Native Apps, CTO for End-User Computing, the Chief Architect and Principal Engineer for Workspace Portal, and the lead Management Architect for the vRealize Operations Suite. At the start of his career, he was the technical lead behind the creation, development, and delivery of the vMotion and Storage vMotion features in vSphere.

Kit holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Brown University and is a recognized thought-leader on Cloud-Native, End-User Computing, and Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure trends.  He speaks regularly at industry conferences, on the main stage at VMworld, and is the Hybrid Cloud voice for the VMware Office of the CTO.

I got to know Kit while at VMware. Kit has always been someone that I had an easy time connecting with. He is technically very deep but is able to simplify concepts in order for others to understand. For me, this proved to be incredibly valuable when Kit and I talked about challenges that we were facing or working on opportunities to work together. Many of these brief conversations happened in the VMware gym while we were stretching and cooling down from a workout!

The reason I wanted to have Kit on the show, other than that he is incredibly smart and very articulate, is that he has moved in and out of management. His experiences in doing this have been both energizing and exhausting. The lessons that have come from these experiences will be valuable to any technologist struggling with whether to go into management.

I really hope you enjoy!

In this podcast, I interview Kit Colbert, Vice President and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for the Cloud Platform Business Unit at VMware.

In this role, Kit is responsible for driving technical strategy and innovation for the vSphere, VMware Cloud on AWS, and VMware Cloud on DellEMC product lines.

Previously, Kit was GM of Cloud-Native Apps, CTO for End-User Computing, the Chief Architect and Principal Engineer for Workspace Portal, and the lead Management Architect for the vRealize Operations Suite. At the start of his career, he was the technical lead behind the creation, development, and delivery of the vMotion and Storage vMotion features in vSphere.

Kit holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Brown University and is a recognized thought-leader on Cloud-Native, End-User Computing, and Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure trends.  He speaks regularly at industry conferences, on the main stage at VMworld, and is the Hybrid Cloud voice for the VMware Office of the CTO.

I got to know Kit while at VMware. Kit has always been someone that I had an easy time connecting with. He is technically very deep but is able to simplify concepts in order for others to understand. For me, this proved to be incredibly valuable when Kit and I talked about challenges that we were facing or working on opportunities to work together. Many of these brief conversations happened in the VMware gym while we were stretching and cooling down from a workout!

The reason I wanted to have Kit on the show, other than that he is incredibly smart and very articulate, is that he has moved in and out of management. His experiences in doing this have been both energizing and exhausting. The lessons that have come from these experiences will be valuable to any technologist struggling with whether to go into management.

I really hope you enjoy!

In this podcast, I talk to Cody Hosterman, Technical Director for VMware & Cloud Solutions at Pure Storage, about his career path.

In his current role, Cody's team focuses on the VMware ecosystem and cloud-based offering integration with the Pure Storage FlashArray and Cloud Block Store. He has a deep background in virtualization and storage technologies, including experience as a Solutions Engineer and Principal Virtualization Technologist.  In his current position, he is responsible for VMware & Cloud integration strategy, best practices, and developing new integrations and documentation.

Cody has spoken internationally on the topics of virtualization and storage at numerous conferences and events such as VMworld and various virtualization-related user groups and trade shows.  He is the author of several technical whitepapers and guides related to virtualization, storage, and data center infrastructure. He is the co-author or contributor to multiple technical reference books and his frequently-updated personal blog contains his latest work and contributions.

Prior to working for Pure, Cody worked at EMC and Penn State, where he graduated with a degree in Information Sciences and Technology.

I have known Cody for a while now. He is the husband of the sister (Janice) of my daughter in law (Nicole). My son Anthony got to know Cody when he and Janice started dating him. Cody helped Anthony to find a job at Pure Storage. I got to know Cody through Anthony.

Wow, that was hard to explain.

Since getting to know Cody, we have spent a good amount of time together. We had Cody and Janice over to a VMware get together during VMworld Barcelona - where he had a great time connecting with VMware folks that only knew Cody through his blog. We have gone snowshoeing. Attended Cody and Janice's wedding. And have attended numerous family gatherings.

Cody has been an early listener of my podcasts. He gave me feedback and now that he has become a manager, is perfect to have on the show!

I hope you enjoy!

In this podcast, I interview Cody Hosterman, Technical Director for VMware & Cloud Solutions at Pure Storage.

In his current role, Cody's team focuses on the VMware ecosystem and cloud-based offering integration with the Pure Storage FlashArray and Cloud Block Store. He has a deep background in virtualization and storage technologies, including experience as a Solutions Engineer and Principal Virtualization Technologist.  In his current position, he is responsible for VMware & Cloud integration strategy, best practices, and developing new integrations and documentation.

Cody has spoken internationally on the topics of virtualization and storage at numerous conferences and events such as VMworld and various virtualization-related user groups and trade shows.  He is the author of several technical whitepapers and guides related to virtualization, storage, and data center infrastructure. He is the co-author or contributor to multiple technical reference books and his frequently-updated personal blog contains his latest work and contributions.

Prior to working for Pure, Cody worked at EMC and Penn State, where he graduated with a degree in Information Sciences and Technology.

I have known Cody for a while now. He is the husband of the sister (Janice) of my daughter in law (Nicole). My son Anthony got to know Cody when he and Janice started dating him. Cody helped Anthony to find a job at Pure Storage. I got to know Cody through Anthony.

Wow, that was hard to explain.

Since getting to know Cody, we have spent a good amount of time together. We had Cody and Janice over to a VMware get together during VMworld Barcelona - where he had a great time connecting with VMware folks that only knew Cody through his blog. We have gone snowshoeing. Attended Cody and Janice's wedding. And have attended numerous family gatherings.

Cody has been an early listener of my podcasts. He gave me feedback and now that he has become a manager, is perfect to have on the show!

I hope you enjoy!

In this podcast, I talk Eddie Dinel, Senior Director of Product Management at VMware, where he has been since 2002, about his career path.

In his role, Eddie has two key responsibilities. The first is VMware Validated Designs, a new way of approaching the problem of SDDC deployments. And the second is the "Enterprise Readiness" program across all products at VMware, focusing on reducing the friction involved in operating VMware software.

Eddie has held many previous roles at VMware, across product development, technical alliances and IT. He has been involved in nearly every product that VMware has ever shipped.

Prior to VMware, Eddie was at Zack Systems and HighWire Press.

Eddie graduated with a Bachelor of Art in History as well as minors in Physics and Computer Science from Stanford University.

I have had the pleasure to work with Eddie in most of the roles that I had at VMware. He is a passionate leader with a unique level of depth and breadth across VMware products.

I hope you enjoy!

In this podcast, I interview Eddie Dinel, Senior Director of Product Management at VMware, where he has been since 2002!

In his role, Eddie has two key responsibilities. The first is VMware Validated Designs, a new way of approaching the problem of SDDC deployments. And the second is the "Enterprise Readiness" program across all products at VMware, focusing on reducing the friction involved in operating VMware software.

Eddie has held many previous roles at VMware, across product development, technical alliances and IT. He has been involved in nearly every product that VMware has ever shipped.

Prior to VMware, Eddie was at Zack Systems and HighWire Press.

Eddie graduated with a Bachelor of Art in History as well as minors in Physics and Computer Science from Stanford University.

I have had the pleasure to work with Eddie in most of the roles that I had at VMware. He is a passionate leader with a unique level of depth and breadth across VMware products.

I hope you enjoy!

In this podcast, I talk to Vijay Anand, Senior Vice President at Intuit, about his career path.

In his role, Vijay engages with all global product development sites and guides them on the strategies for the future aimed at delivering Intuit’s mission to power prosperity around the world. Vijay also leads Intuit’s Tech Culture initiative with the objective of transforming Intuit into a world-class technology company and is the executive sponsor for the Women in Tech.

During his 10-year tenure, Vijay is credited with building Intuit’s India Development Center in Bangalore where over 1000+ talented employees deliver game-changing innovations across Quickbooks, TurboTax, and Mint and delight millions of customers around the world. Vijay has extended Intuit’s global presence with a new global development center in Israel that is accelerating our journey on AI, Machine Learning and Information Security. Back in 2010, Vijay created a set of tenets called the Global Engineering Principles based on his experiences building successful global product teams. These principles coupled with Vijay’s servant leadership style of management have been the foundation for Intuit’s success in attracting the best talent in the world’s talent hotspots and keeping them highly engaged. As a result, Intuit is consistently ranked as one of India’s Best Companies to Work For by the Great Place to Work Institute and The Economic Times including the #1 ranking in 2017.  Intuit is also recognized as an industry leader in India when it comes to Diversity and Inclusion as well as Most Innovative in the Industry.

For his work at Intuit, Vijay received the Bill Campbell Coach’s Award in 2017 and the CEO Leadership Award in 2013. Out and Equal recognized his championship of workplace equality with their Champion Award in 2014. Vijay was also invited to serve on AnitaB.org’s US Board of Trustees in 2015. He serves on the board of technology startups and social ventures in India as well as in the Silicon Valley and actively mentors (and is mentored by) entrepreneurs, women technologists and next-gen talent.

Prior to Intuit, Vijay has built large R&D centers for Sun Microsystems and Oracle in India. Vijay was an entrepreneur for the first 14 years of his career in the US, first at Transarc (acquired by IBM in 1993) and later, NetDynamics (acquired by Sun Microsystems in 1998).  At Sun, Vijay led the Application Server team and subsequently the e-commerce platform at iPlanet, a Sun-Netscape alliance.

Vijay has a graduate degree in Computer Science from the University of Arizona and a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India.

I got to know Vijay at Sun Microsystems while he was running the large Sun India Research Center. I was building and running teams across multiple sites, with India being my largest. Vijay was always there, supporting me as needed and giving me feedback at each step along the way.

I hope you enjoy!

In this podcast, I interview Vijay Anand, Senior Vice President responsible for Global Development Centers and based in Intuit’s headquarters in Mountain View, California.

In this role, Vijay engages with all global product development sites and guides them on the strategies for the future aimed at delivering Intuit’s mission to power prosperity around the world. Vijay also leads Intuit’s Tech Culture initiative with the objective of transforming Intuit into a world-class technology company and is the executive sponsor for the Women in Tech.

During his 10-year tenure, Vijay is credited with building Intuit’s India Development Center in Bangalore where over 1000+ talented employees deliver game-changing innovations across Quickbooks, TurboTax, and Mint and delight millions of customers around the world. Vijay has extended Intuit’s global presence with a new global development center in Israel that is accelerating our journey on AI, Machine Learning and Information Security. Back in 2010, Vijay created a set of tenets called the Global Engineering Principles based on his experiences building successful global product teams. These principles coupled with Vijay’s servant leadership style of management have been the foundation for Intuit’s success in attracting the best talent in the world’s talent hotspots and keeping them highly engaged. As a result, Intuit is consistently ranked as one of India’s Best Companies to Work For by the Great Place to Work Institute and The Economic Times including the #1 ranking in 2017.  Intuit is also recognized as an industry leader in India when it comes to Diversity and Inclusion as well as Most Innovative in the Industry.

For his work at Intuit, Vijay received the Bill Campbell Coach’s Award in 2017 and the CEO Leadership Award in 2013. Out and Equal recognized his championship of workplace equality with their Champion Award in 2014. Vijay was also invited to serve on AnitaB.org’s US Board of Trustees in 2015. He serves on the board of technology startups and social ventures in India as well as in the Silicon Valley and actively mentors (and is mentored by) entrepreneurs, women technologists and next-gen talent.

Prior to Intuit, Vijay has built large R&D centers for Sun Microsystems and Oracle in India. Vijay was an entrepreneur for the first 14 years of his career in the US, first at Transarc (acquired by IBM in 1993) and later, NetDynamics (acquired by Sun Microsystems in 1998).  At Sun, Vijay led the Application Server team and subsequently the e-commerce platform at iPlanet, a Sun-Netscape alliance.

Vijay has a graduate degree in Computer Science from the University of Arizona and a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India.

I got to know Vijay at Sun Microsystems while he was running the large Sun India Research Center. I was building and running teams across multiple sites, with India being my largest. Vijay was always there, supporting me as needed and giving me feedback at each step along the way.

I hope you enjoy!

In this podcast, I interview Ray O'Farrell, Executive Vice President and leader of the Cloud-Native Apps Business Unit at VMware.

In his current role, Ray will envision and extend the company’s strategy and operating model for delivering the Kubernetes platform of the future.

Prior to August 2019, Ray served as executive vice president and chief technology officer, where his main focus areas were to ensure VMware’s long term technology leadership through research and innovation programs, with the primary goal of positively impacting and shaping the future of VMware, its ecosystem and its customers.

Prior to his role as Chief Technology Officer, Ray co-led the Software-Defined Data Center Division comprising the vSphere, networking, management and storage businesses and was responsible for the division’s strategy, business, and product planning and engineering execution.

Ray joined VMware to lead the ESX Storage team during the early development of the ESX platform. He helped build a large ecosystem of partners in storage and helped expand the portfolio, which today includes products such as VMFS (Virtual Machine File System) and VMware vSAN. During his tenure at VMware, Ray built and managed a global R&D organization and held engineering responsibilities across the entire VMware portfolio. His responsibilities spanned management of all of the components of VMware’s flagship vSphere and suite products, including core compute, networking, storage, and Cloud management. O’Farrell also spearheaded the Dell Technologies IoT division.

Ray has over 20 years of software engineering and product delivery experience. Before VMware, he developed and shipped development tools and operating systems for real-time, embedded and DSP systems at a number of companies including Industrial and Scientific Imaging (Ireland), Ashling Microsystems (Ireland), Improv Systems (United States) and Microtec/Mentor-Graphics (United States).

Ray holds a bachelor’s of engineering in electronics and a master’s of engineering in computer science, both from the University of Limerick in Ireland.

I hope you enjoy my interview with Ray!

In this podcast, I talk to Robert (Bob) Worrall, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer (CIO) at Juniper Networks, about his career path.

Bob heads up Juniper’s global information technology (IT) team. In this role, he leads the ongoing enhancement of the company’s IT infrastructure and applications architectures to support the growth objectives of the company. He and his team are also responsible for showcasing Juniper’s use of its technologies to the world.

Prior to joining Juniper in 2015, Bob was senior vice president and chief information officer at NVIDIA with responsibility for deploying innovative technologies to enhance employee productivity and improve cost efficiencies. He also spent more than two decades at Sun Microsystems, including six years as chief information officer. He also held a variety of roles in Sun’s IT organization, including vice president of applications and vice president of IT operations. Worrall has extensive international business experience, including a two-year assignment in The Netherlands.

Bob holds an MBA and a bachelor’s degree from California State University, East Bay.

I hope you enjoy!