HPE Snatches Away VMware Cloud Services GM Fidelma Russo As New CTO
The appointment of Russo comes with HPE in the midst of a “massive acceleration” of the GreenLake edge-to-cloud platform-as-a-service development effort.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise has hired VMware Cloud Services General Manager Fidelma Russo as its new CTO as part of a stepped up GreenLake edge-to-cloud platform-as-a-service development effort.
Russo, a highly respected 37-year technology industry veteran who has been overseeing VMware’s cloud services business unit for the last 17 months, will be responsible for managing the design, development and road-map for GreenLake.
The appointment of Russo, who also spent six years as a Dell enterprise storage and software senior vice president, comes with HPE in the midst of a “massive acceleration” of the GreenLake edge-to-cloud platform-as-a-service development effort.
HPE CEO Antonio Neri has promised that over the next six months HPE aims to take its edge-to-cloud platform as a service to new heights versus public cloud providers with a breakthrough GreenLake.HPE.com front end.
“Between now and March you are going to see a massive acceleration [of GreenLake],” said Neri after HPE recently posted a banner GreenLake quarter with a 46 percent increase in as-a-service orders. “That’s why it’s my No. 1 priority.”
In a prepared statement, Neri said he is “excited” for Russo to join the HPE team. “Fidelma brings deep expertise in cloud services, software and infrastructure, built on an extensive career in technology,” he said. “Her diverse experience makes her distinctively suited to drive innovation as we accelerate our transformation and bring differentiated solutions to the market.”
Russo said in a prepared statement that she is “thrilled” to be joining HPE, a company which she said has a “deep heritage of innovation” at a “transformational moment” in the industry.
“I look forward to working with our leadership, engineers, developers, customers and partners as we focus on delivering solutions that provide a unified as-a-service experience, from edge to cloud.”
Russo replaces Kumar Sreekanti, who had been heading up the GreenLake development effort as senior vice president, CTO and head of software since 2019, after HPE announced August 17 that he was retiring.
Erik Krucker, CTO at Comport Consulting, an HPE Platinum partner, No. 302 on the CRN Solution Provider 500, called Russo’s appointment a “huge win and coup” for HPE. “She brings a tremendous amount of experience with her lineage and track record from the companies she worked at,” said Krucker. “She understands the partner ecosystem and what it takes to bring cloud services to the market.”
Krucker said he was excited about the hiring of Russo and HPE’s no-holds-barred GreenLake innovation, which is making the edge-to-cloud platform as a service a true alternative to public cloud.
“It’s great to see HPE accelerating its strategy with innovations like the cloud storage console,” he said. “HPE is making it easier for customers to consume IT as a service with the ability for partners to layer on their services on top of GreenLake.”
Krucker said he sees HPE competitors offering leasing-like consumption models versus HPE’s innovative GreenLake edge-to-cloud platform as a service.
“You’ve got to give Antonio a lot of credit for seeing where the market is going and driving HPE innovation in that direction rather than just being reactive. Antonio is not afraid to take on [Amazon Web Services] and [Microsoft] Azure with a true edge-to-cloud platform service.”
Pat O’Dell, general manager and managing partner for Clinton, N.J.-based solution provider CPP Associates, one of HPE’s top enterprise partners, called the Russo hire a “massive” addition to the impressive HPE management team.
“She looks to me like the right person with the right experience from the right organization who can help realize Antonio’s HPE GreenLake edge-to-cloud platform-as-a-service vision,” said O’Dell. “This shows how fully committed Antonio and HPE are to driving innovation with GreenLake.”
O’Dell said Russo’s appointment is as big a game-changer as HPE’s decision to bring former Microsoft cloud services superstar Keith White to HPE nearly two years ago to drive a full cloud services ecosystem for GreenLake.
“Bringing Fidelma Russo to HPE is another piece to the puzzle,” said O’Dell. “It fills a key slot. Think about her VMware experience and leadership and all the relationships that go with that. This is great news for partners looking to grow the GreenLake edge-to-cloud platform-as-a-service business.”