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 Administrative Officer, overseeing Legal, Compliance, Government Relations, and Sustainability, as well as assuming responsibility for Human Resources, Workplace Experience, and Corporate Communications. By unifying these critical functions under a single leadership umbrella, NetApp aims to foster greater synergy, alignment, and operational excellence in support of its corporate strategy. Beth also serves as NetApp’s Corporate Secretary.

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. 

Wissam Jabre is an accomplished finance executive with over 20 years of experience leading finance organizations and driving value creation through disciplined operational management.

Prior to joining NetApp, Jabre served as the Executive Vice President and CFO at Western Digital Corporation, where he led the global finance organization and oversaw various critical functions. He has also held senior finance positions at prominent technology companies, including Dialog Semiconductor, Advanced Micro Devices, Freescale Semiconductor, and Motorola. Jabre's career began at Schlumberger, where he gained valuable experience in both engineering and finance roles.

Jabre holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a B.E. in Electrical Engineering from the American University of Beirut. He also serves as an audit committee member on the board of MKS Instruments, Inc.

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. 

Gus Shahin is the Executive Vice President of Business Technology and Operations at NetApp. In this role, Shahin leads critical business operations providing a solid foundation for accelerating growth and fostering cross-functional execution across four key company pillars - Information Technology, Operations, Global Security, and Enterprise Process Excellence. He joined NetApp in 2024.

Previously, Gus was the President and Chief Information Officer (CIO) at Flex, where he was responsible for driving the Corporate IT strategy and deployment of mission critical solutions that enable Flex cybersecurity, business productivity and user enablement. He also led the digital transformation of many worldwide initiatives including the design and deployment of the key business processes across the entire company that includes Supply Chain, Commercial Processes as well as New Product Launches.

Prior to his current role, Mr. Shahin was responsible for customer and segment IT support, global implementations of core supply chain IT systems, customer solution architecture and the Knowledge Management/E-learning teams. Mr. Shahin’s IT career also included managing the factory operations team, running the global IT deployment team, and leading the mobile/consumer IT team.

Mr. Shahin holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Louisiana, and a Master’s Degree in Engineering from the University of Western Ontario.

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. 

Anders Gustafsson is the Chair of the Board of Directors of Zebra Technologies and previously served as Zebra’s Chief Executive Officer and a director from 2007 to March 2023. Prior to joining Zebra, Mr. Gustafsson served as Chief Executive Officer of Spirent Communications plc, a publicly traded telecommunications company, from 2004 until 2007. At Spirent, he redirected that Company’s growth strategy, divested non-core operations, integrated historic acquisitions and streamlined the organization to realize significant cost savings. From 2000 until 2004, he was Senior Executive Vice President, Global Business Operations, of Tellabs, Inc., a communications networking company. Mr. Gustafsson’s other roles at Tellabs included President, Tellabs International; President, Global Sales; and Vice President and General Manager, Europe, Middle East and Africa. Earlier in his career, he held executive positions with Motorola, Inc.

Mr. Gustafsson is a member of the board of directors of International Paper Company (NYSE: IP), a leading global producer of renewable fiber-based packaging, pulp and paper products. Previously, Mr. Gustafsson was a member of the board of directors of Dycom Industries Inc. (NYSE: DY), a company that provides construction and specialty services to the telecommunication industry. He is a member of the Technology Committee and the Immigration Committee of the Business Roundtable. He also serves as a trustee of the Shedd Aquarium and is a member of the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago.

With more than 20 years of senior leadership experience, Mr. Gustafsson provides the Board with significant executive perspective in executing successful transformations, accelerating growth, and advancing a company’s vision. Mr. Gustafsson also brings valuable experience in creating a strong, inclusive culture with a strong commitment to attracting, developing and retaining the best talent globally.

Mr. Gustafsson has an MBA from the Harvard Graduate School of Business and a Master of Science degree in electrical engineering from Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden. He was a Fulbright Scholar and received numerous fellowships and scholarships for academic excellence.

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. 

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

Ms. Kerr is Managing Partner and Co-Head of Value Creation at 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. 

June Yang was appointed to the NetApp board in September 2024.

Ms. Yang served as Vice President, Cloud AI and Industry Solutions of Google Cloud (cloud computing services) from October 2021 to December 2023 and as Vice President and General Manager, Compute and ML Infrastructure from October 2019 to October 2021. Prior to joining Google Cloud, Ms. Yang held various positions of increasing seniority at VMWare, Inc. in engineering and product management roles, including most recently as Vice President, Engineering and Product Management of VMWare Cloud on Dell EMC. Ms. Yang currently serves on the board of directors of UiPath, Inc., a global software company, where she is a member of the audit committee.

Ms. Yang is a proven technology executive in the software industry who brings extensive leadership, expertise in AI, cloud and digital, product and technology experience, and significant public company board experience to the Board. Ms. Yang brings significant operational experience and valuable knowledge in AI and Cloud technologies, including in executing successful transformations, accelerating growth and innovation, and managing risk and change in complex environments.

Ms. Yang has a master’s degree in management from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, a master’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of California Berkeley and a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the California Institute of Technology.

Frank Pelzer was appointed to the NetApp board in March 2025.

Mr. Pelzer currently serves as Chief Operating Officer of Spotnana, a leading provider of modern travel infrastructure. Prior to joining Spotnana, Mr. Pelzer was Chief Financial Officer of F5, Inc., a security and app services company, from May 2018 to November 2024. Prior to his role at F5, Mr. Pelzer was the President and Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the Cloud Business Group at SAP and the Chief Financial Officer of Concur. Prior to these positions, he also spent ten years in investment banking, holding senior leadership positions at Deutsche Bank AG and Credit Suisse Group. He currently serves on the Board of Directors at Freshworks and Direct Travel.

With over 30 years of experience in finance, investment banking, management consulting, investor relations, and business operations, Mr. Pelzer brings to the Board substantial experience in managing high growth, innovative technology companies, and financial management and leadership experience. Mr. Pelzer qualifies as an “audit committee financial expert” under the rules and regulations of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Mr. Pelzer has a bachelor’s of arts degree from Dartmouth College and a master’s in business administration from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College.