NetApp's leadership

George Kurian is chief executive officer at NetApp and a member of the Board of Directors. George joined the company in 2011, bringing his passion and relentless focus on execution to his leadership roles at NetApp. He was named CEO in June 2015. 

Previously at NetApp, as executive vice president of Product Operations, George was responsible for the strategy and development of NetApp’s product and solutions portfolio. Before that, George was senior vice president of the Data ONTAP Group overseeing development of the Data ONTAP operating system. 

George joined NetApp as senior vice president of the Storage Solutions Group, where he was responsible for the solutions portfolio and joint partner technology integration. 

Prior to joining NetApp, George was vice president and general manager of the Application Networking and Switching Technology Group at Cisco Systems. George’s diverse background also includes the role of vice president at Akamai Technologies, management consulting at McKinsey & Company, and leading software engineering and product management teams at Oracle Corporation. George is also an independent director on the Board of global health services company Cigna Corporation. 

As the Company’s Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Kurian brings exceptional leadership skills, human capital management expertise, and extensive experience and knowledge of the Company’s business, operations and strategy, which enable him to keep the Board apprised of significant developments impacting the Company and the industry and to guide the Board’s discussion and review of the Company’s strategy. 

He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from Princeton University and an MBA from Stanford University. 

César Cernuda has led NetApp’s integrated go-to-market organization since July 2020—delivering on the NetApp promise of meeting customers wherever they are on their digital transformation journeys by providing the superior products, specialist skills, and services they need to architect, build, and manage their data fabrics.

Cernuda joined NetApp following a long career at Microsoft, where he served as president of Microsoft Asia Pacific, president of Microsoft Latin America, and global corporate vice president of the brand. Having walked in the shoes of NetApp’s enterprise customers who are undergoing their own digital transformations, he brings a customer-centric perspective to all he does as president.

Cernuda is a graduate of the Harvard Business School Executive Leadership Program and the Program for Management Development at IESE Business School – University of Navarra, and he also completed the Leading Sustainable Corporations Programme at Oxford University’s Saïd Business School. He earned his bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from ESIC Business & Marketing School. He serves as the non-executive director and Chairman of the ESG committee at Gestamp, an international organization dedicated to the automotive industry; as an advisory board member of Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business; and as an international advisory board member of IESE Business School – University of Navarra.

Harvinder (Harv) Bhela is NetApp’s Chief Product Officer and joined the company in 2022. Harv is responsible for leading NetApp’s product and engineering teams in our ongoing transformation into a multi-cloud, storage, and data services leader by accelerating breakthrough innovation at scale. The next generation of businesses are all data-centric, digital businesses. This is the “age of data” but that data is an ever-growing, increasingly diverse, ever-multifaceted, ever-harder to manage resource that is fragmented across on-premises and hybrid multi-cloud environments. Harv and his team are focused on delivering differentiated solutions to help customers unlock enormous business value across their entire data estate everywhere.

Prior to joining NetApp, Harv spent the last 25 years at Microsoft where he held multiple executive leadership positions. He built the company’s Exchange business, turning Office 365 into the world’s largest productivity cloud, and was instrumental in the successful launch of Windows 10. Most recently, he served as Corporate Vice President of the Microsoft 365 Security, Compliance and Management business, which he started and grew to more than $10 billion in annual revenue, making Microsoft the largest security company in the world.

Harv holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree from the University of Mumbai and a Master of Science degree in Computer Science from the University of Minnesota.

Elizabeth (Beth) O’Callahan is NetApp’s Chief Legal Officer, overseeing the company’s legal, policy, compliance, ESG, government relations and regulatory affairs. Elizabeth also serves as NetApp’s corporate secretary and chief compliance officer.  

Throughout her career, Elizabeth has advised leading technology companies on a variety of matters, including corporate governance, securities law, mergers and acquisitions, capital markets transactions, corporate compliance and ethics, data privacy, intellectual property, and litigation. Before joining NetApp in 2013, Elizabeth served in a senior legal role at Xilinx, and began her legal career in private practice in Silicon Valley specializing in corporate law and business litigation. 

Elizabeth currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley and Bay Scholars. 

Elizabeth holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of California at Los Angeles and a J.D. from Santa Clara University. 

Mike Berry is a technology industry veteran with a strong background in finance, operations and general management. Before joining NetApp, Mike was executive vice president and chief financial officer at McAfee. He was responsible for all aspects of finance, including financial planning, accounting, tax, and treasury, as well as operations and shared services.

Before joining McAfee in February 2017, Mike was executive vice president, chief financial officer, and chief operating officer at FireEye. Previously, he was executive vice president and chief financial officer for Informatica. Earlier, he led finance and other operations for several technology companies, including SolarWinds and i2 Technologies.

Mike earned a bachelor’s degree in finance from Augsburg College and an MBA in finance from the University of St. Thomas. He is a member of the Rapid7 board of directors and serves as audit committee chair.

Debra McCowan is executive vice president and chief human resources officer for NetApp. She is responsible for developing the global HR strategy and leading the entire organization, including talent acquisition, talent development and learning, business partnerships, organizational development and effectiveness, compensation and benefits, diversity, inclusion and belonging, operations, and systems.

Debra is a change and transformational HR leader with 20+ years of global experience focused on integrating the people strategy with the business strategy to drive performance and growth and promote organizational health. Her success comes from her proven ability to build high-performing, goal-exceeding teams and develop progressive, business-aligned HR strategies and initiatives while providing strategic and operational leadership, typically in a context of rapid growth, change, and maturation.

In her last role as chief human resources officer at Equinix, Debra built a robust global HR function in a fast-paced environment. During her five years with the company, the global HR organization was instrumental in evolving Equinix’s culture, building the company brand, and designing and implementing leading-edge programs and initiatives in support of business objectives. Attracting and retaining crucial talent helped to build and position Equinix as a market leader.

Before Equinix, Debra co-founded the Accelerance Group. As a partner, she provided organizational and systems design consulting services and helped clients lead strategic change. Debra has also held global executive leadership roles at Avago Technologies (now Broadcom Inc.), Hitachi Data Systems (now Hitachi Vantara), and Telstra Corporation.

Debra serves on the board of directors of HealthEquity, Inc. She holds a postgraduate diploma in industrial relations and HR management from the University of Melbourne and a bachelor’s degree in English literature from La Trobe University.

Haiyan Song is NetApp's Executive Vice President and General Manager of Cloud Operations, where she is responsible for the strategy and execution of the CloudOps business segment, a rapidly growing, strategically important collection of cloud businesses spanning three key areas - Cloud Insights, Cloud Optimization and Application Services - that help organizations harness the power and potential of the cloud to drive business outcomes. 

Haiyan has spent the last decade of her career in various leadership roles dedicated to cloud and security, most recently as EVP and General Manager of Security and Distributed Cloud at F5, and before that as SVP and General Manager of Security Markets for Splunk. She also led product and engineering at ArcSight and continued to do so under the Hewlett Packard umbrella upon its acquisition.

Haiyan holds both M.S. and B.S. degrees in Computer Science from Florida Atlantic University. She also studied at Tsinghua University in China and completed the Stanford University Graduate School of Business Executive Program in General Management in 2012. 

Abhi Pant, Senior Vice President, Strategic Business Operations, is responsible for driving greater operational rigor across the business and implementing strategies to accelerate pace of execution with closed loop follow through and inspection of the business. Her scope includes providing closer oversight and ensuring the success of our strategic priorities and large-scale, cross-functional projects, strengthening our business and operational reviews, and improving our annual planning and operational processes that support our business objectives.

Abhi is a strategic business leader with a significant track record of driving high-performing teams and delivering successful growth initiatives for technology leaders such as Cisco, Walmart eCommerce, and Yahoo. Most recently, Abhi was VP, Strategy, Planning & Operations for the largest business group at Cisco. 

She brings to NetApp extensive experience in providing strategic oversight and synergies across groups to accelerate growth and increase market share, while ensuring alignment of all business units and strategies to organizational goals. 

Abhi is an alumna of the University of Mumbai in India and has an MBA from Cornell University in New York. 

George Kurian is chief executive officer at NetApp and a member of the Board of Directors. George joined the company in 2011, bringing his passion and relentless focus on execution to his leadership roles at NetApp. He was named CEO in June 2015.

Previously at NetApp, as executive vice president of Product Operations, George was responsible for the strategy and development of NetApp’s product and solutions portfolio. Before that, George was senior vice president of the Data ONTAP Group overseeing development of the Data ONTAP operating system.

George joined NetApp as senior vice president of the Storage Solutions Group, where he was responsible for the solutions portfolio and joint partner technology integration.

Prior to joining NetApp, George was vice president and general manager of the Application Networking and Switching Technology Group at Cisco Systems. George’s diverse background also includes the role of vice president at Akamai Technologies, management consulting at McKinsey & Company, and leading software engineering and product management teams at Oracle Corporation. George is also an independent director on the Board of global health services company Cigna Corporation.

As the Company’s Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Kurian brings exceptional leadership skills, human capital management expertise, and extensive experience and knowledge of the Company’s business, operations and strategy, which enable him to keep the Board apprised of significant developments impacting the Company and the industry and to guide the Board’s discussion and review of the Company’s strategy.

He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from Princeton University and an MBA from Stanford University.

Mike Nevens is Chair of the Board at NetApp.

Mr. Nevens was appointed to the NetApp board in December 2009. Mike serves as an Emeritus Senior Advisor to Permira Funds, an international private equity fund. He also serves on the board of directors of Ciena Corporation, a telecommunications networking equipment and software services company, and on the board of directors of Longbow Technology, a private cybersecurity company. 

Mike retired as a director (senior partner) of McKinsey & Co. in 2002 after leading McKinsey's global technology practice. He also served on the board of the McKinsey Global Institute, which conducts research on economic and policy issues. 

As an investor in, and advisor to, technology companies, Mr. Nevens brings to the Board extensive expertise and insight into growth, management competitive strategy and strategic long-term business planning, as well as expert knowledge of enterprise technology. Through his extensive tenure as a member of the board of directors of both public and private companies, Mr. Nevens brings a wealth of experience advising companies through dynamic economic and market conditions. Additionally, Mr. Nevens provides the Board with insight on corporate governance changes affecting public companies. 

Mike received a B.S. in Physics from the University of Notre Dame and a Master of Science in Industrial Administration from the Krannert School at Purdue University, where he was designated a Krannert Scholar. He resides in Los Altos Hills, California, with his wife, Yvonne. 

Deepak Ahuja was appointed to the NetApp board in January 2020. 

Mr. Ahuja currently serves as Chief Business and Chief Financial Officer of Zipline, where he oversees global financial operations, including finance, accounting, investor relations and global sales, excluding the Africa region. Before joining Zipline, Mr. Ahuja was Chief Financial Officer of Verily Life Sciences from 2020 to September 2022 as well as Chief Financial Officer of Tesla from 2008 to 2015 and from 2017 to 2019. As one of Tesla’s longest-serving executives, Mr. Ahuja played a role in the company’s rise from startup to a large cap energy company. Mr. Ahuja was Tesla’s first finance chief and helped guide it through its IPO in addition to raising several billion dollars of capital to fuel its growth.

Prior to Tesla, he was at Ford Motor Company for 15 years, which provided him experiences in manufacturing, marketing & sales, product development, treasury, and acquisitions/divestitures. Mr. Ahuja was named CFO of the year in 2010 for small public companies by Silicon Valley Business Journal. In 2014, he was named Bay Area CFO of the year for large public companies by San Francisco Business Times.

In addition to extensive financial leadership experience acquired over 20 years in a variety of roles at Zipline, Verily, Tesla and Ford, Mr. Ahuja brings to the Board substantial experience in managing high growth, innovative technology companies, and overseeing risk management in high growth conditions and strategic financial transactions. Mr. Ahuja qualifies as an “audit committee financial expert” under the rules and regulations of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”). 

Mr. Ahuja holds an M.S. in industrial administration from Carnegie Mellon University, an M.S. in materials engineering from Northwestern University and a B. Tech in ceramic engineering from Banaras Hindu University in India. 

Dr. Jerry Held was appointed to the NetApp board in December 2009.

Dr. Held has, after many years leading pioneering work in the data management field, spent over 20 years as a consultant to a wide variety of technology companies, ranging from early-stage startups to large publicly traded companies. From 2006 to 2010, he was the Executive Chairman of Vertica Systems, an analytic database company that was acquired by Hewlett-Packard Company. Dr. Held served in director and executive roles at a variety of technology companies, including Business Objects SA, Tandem Computers, Inc., Oracle Corporation, Openwave Systems Inc., and SingleStore (formerly MemSQL Inc.). 

Dr. Held currently serves on the board of directors of Informatica Corporation, a data management company, and on the board of directors of several private companies, including Copia Global Inc. and Madaket, Inc. 

As a successful entrepreneur, executive, consultant and investor in technology companies, Dr. Held brings to the Board a strong technical background and extensive experience in the data management field, entrepreneurial experience and insights into the Cloud space, and over 40 years of experience in developing, managing and advising technology organizations and leading edge start-up companies through all stages of growth. Through his broad technology experience, Mr. Held also provides the Board with strong product, product marketing and customer insights, as well as expertise in technological trends and developments. 

Dr. Held received a BS in Electrical Engineering from Purdue, an MS in Systems Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley, where he led the initial development of the INGRES relational database management system. 

Kathy Hill was appointed to the NetApp board in September 2013. 

Ms. Hill has more than 30 years of experience as a business leader and product developer of data network technologies. She served in various leadership positions in engineering and operations at Cisco from 1997 to 2013, including: Executive Advisor from 2011 to 2013, Senior Vice President, Development Strategy and Operations from 2009 to 2011, Senior Vice President, Access Networking and Services Group from 2008 to 2009 and Senior Vice President, Ethernet Systems and Wireless Technology Group from 2005 to 2008. Prior to Cisco, Ms. Hill had a number of engineering roles at various technology companies.

Ms. Hill currently serves on the board of directors of Celanese Corporation and Moody’s Corporation. 

Ms. Hill brings to the Board more than 30 years of experience in management and leadership of global engineering and operations organizations, including executive roles at Cisco during a time of tremendous growth in technology and applications. Through her extensive leadership experience and strong background in information technology and business operations, Ms. Hill brings unique insights into information technology for the enterprise and management of large scale engineering organizations. Ms. Hill also has extensive experience as a public company board member, including knowledge of ESG and expertise in executive compensation. 

Ms. Hill received a B.S. degree in Mathematics from Rochester Institute of Technology. 

Deborah Kerr was appointed to the NetApp board in November 2017. 

Ms. Kerr is Managing Partner and Co-Head of Warburg Pincus, where she joined in 2017 as a Senior Advisor and as Managing Director in 2019.  From 2013 to 2017, Ms. Kerr was the Executive Vice President, Chief Product & Technology Officer for Sabre Corporation, a software and services technology provider to the travel and transportation industry. Prior to her role at Sabre Corporation, Deborah served as Executive Vice President and Chief Product & Technology Officer at Fair Isaac Corporation from 2009-2012. Deborah has also served in various technology leadership roles at Hewlett-Packard, Peregrine Systems, and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. 

Ms. Kerr currently serves on the board of directors of Vodafone Group Plc, where she serves as a member of the audit and technology committees, and Chico’s FAS, Inc., where she serves as a member of the Governance and Nominating, Human Resources and Compensation, and ESG committees.  

With over 30 years of diverse experience leading product and technology organizations, Ms. Kerr is a proven technology executive in the software industry who brings extensive leadership, product and technology experience, expertise in cloud and digital, and significant public company board experience to the Board. Ms. Kerr brings significant operational experience and valuable knowledge regarding executing successful transformations, accelerating growth and innovation, and managing risk and change in complex environments. 

Ms. Kerr holds a M.S. in Computer Science and B.A. in Psychology and resides in Dallas, Texas, with her husband, Alan. 

Carrie Palin was appointed to the NetApp board in February 2021. 

Carrie joined Cisco Systems, Inc. in June 2021 as Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer. Previously, she served as Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of Splunk Inc from February 2019 to April 2021. Prior to Splunk, she served as Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of both Box, Inc. and SendGrid, Inc. (which was acquired by Twilio, Inc.) from 2016 to 2018 and 2018 to 2019, respectively. Previously, she served as Vice President of Marketing for IBM’s Cloud Data Services and held myriad marketing leadership roles during her 16-year career at Dell. Ms. Palin currently serves on the board of directors of EnterpriseDB, a private software and services company. 

With over 20 years of experience leading sales and marketing organizations, Ms. Palin is a leader in the software industry who brings to the Board extensive leadership, global go-to-market strategy, sales and marketing experience, and expertise in the cloud. Due to Ms. Palin’s strong advocacy at Cisco for Women in Technology and experience driving diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, she brings valuable insights to the Board regarding the development, engagement, and championship of diversity and inclusion for employees. 

Carrie earned a B.S. in communications from Texas Christian University. 

Scott Schenkel was appointed to the NetApp board in November 2017. 

Mr. Schenkel has more than 25 years of extensive business and financial leadership expertise across healthcare, technology and commerce industries. As an operationally-focused CFO, Scott’s experience spans financial planning and analytics, strategy, audit, mergers and acquisitions, acquisition integration, Six Sigma and process improvement.  

He served as the interim Chief Executive Officer of eBay, Inc. from September 2019 to April 2020. He joined eBay, Inc. in 2007 and served as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer from 2015 to 2019, leading finance, analytics and information technology. He also served as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of eBay Marketplace from 2009 to 2015 and as Vice President of Global Financial Planning and Analytics. Previously, Mr. Schenkel spent nearly 17 years at General Electric Company in a variety of finance roles.  

Mr. Schenkel brings to the Board more than 25 years of extensive corporate and financial leadership, and operational expertise across technology and commerce industries. Mr. Schenkel has deep knowledge of financial and accounting issues, and a wealth of experience with financial planning and analytics, strategy, audit, mergers and acquisitions, Six Sigma and process improvement. Mr. Schenkel also provides the Board with top-level leadership perspective in organizational management and operations. 

Scott received his B.S. from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University’s Pamplin College of Business. 

George Shaheen was appointed to the NetApp board in June 2004. 

Mr. Shaheen, who joined Andersen LLC in July 2022 as Special Advisor to CEO and Global Management Committee, has served in a variety of senior leadership roles, including Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Entity Labs, Ltd., a technology company in the data collection, storage and analytics space, Chief Executive Officer of Siebel Systems, Inc., a customer relationship management software company, Chairman of the Board of Webvan Group, Inc. and Global Managing Partner of Andersen Consulting, which later became Accenture. In addition to his public and private board service, Mr. Shaheen has also served as an IT Governor of the World Economic Forum and on the Board of Advisors of Northwestern University Kellogg Graduate School of Management and the Board of Trustees of Bradley University.  

Mr. Shaheen brings to the Board significant executive and strategic experience leading, managing and advising technology companies and expertise in compliance matters as a result of his service on public and private company boards and their audit and compensation committees. Mr. Shaheen provides unique perspectives on leading large organizations and executive teams as a result of his lengthy career as a chief executive officer. His consulting background gives him keen insight into sales and the customer-based service aspect of the Company’s operations. 

Mr. Shaheen has a master's degree in business administration and a bachelor of science degree from Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois and he has served on the University's Board of Trustees.