VMware names Kit Colbert as chief technology officer

VMware has named Kit Colbert as its chief technology officer, replacing Ray O'Farrell, who’s been interim/acting CTO after Greg Lavender’s departure in June.

Colbert joined VMware in 2003 as the technical lead behind the creation of the vMotion and Storage vMotion features in VMware vSphere. Throughout his tenure at VMware, he served in multiple roles, including VMware’s cloud CTO, general manager of VMware’s cloud-native apps business, CTO for VMware’s end-user computing business and as the lead architect for the VMware vRealize operations suite.

As part of his new role, Colbert will shape the technical vision for the company as it aims to transform to a cloud and subscription-centric organization. His oversight includes advancing research and development efforts and overseeing the VMware engineering services team and the design/UX team.

“Kit’s passion, proven technological savvy and excellent leadership capabilities will be instrumental in advancing our innovation engine and research and development efforts,” said Raghu Raghuram, CEO at VMware, in a statement.

RELATED: VMware chooses Raghu Raghuram as new CEO

Raghuram, himself, only became CEO effective June 1. There’s been some reshuffling at the C-suite level since Pat Gelsinger departed as CEO of VMware to become CEO at Intel. VMware's former CTO Greg Lavender joined Gelsinger at Intel in June.

Zane Rowe is currently VMware’s chief financial officer. Sumit Dhawan was appointed VMware’s president effective June 1.

The company is on track to complete its previously announced spin-off from parent Dell Technologies in early November.

RELATED: VMware CEO sees faster cloud, SaaS growth ahead

During its most recent quarter, VMware’s subscription and software-as-a-service (SaaS) revenue jumped 23%, with Raghuram tipping growth to accelerate further over the next year as it transitions more of its software products to a cloud-based model.