NetApp promotes Tom Mendoza to position of vice chairman

NetApp today announced the promotion of Tom Georgens to the newly created role of company president and chief operating officer, overseeing the company’s product and field operations. The company also announced that veteran Tom Mendoza, who has served as president since 2001, has been promoted to the newly created position of vice chairman. In this position, Mendoza will focus on customer advocacy, partnering with NetApp sales and channel partners to deliver more value to customers and championing the company’s values and leadership to a growing employee population. Both Mendoza and Georgens continue to report directly to NetApp CEO Dan Warmenhoven. These promotions are effective immediately.

“Tom Mendoza is an icon and a legend at NetApp and among our customers and partners,” said Dan Warmenhoven. “Our customers know him to be a trusted advisor and listener. Our employees know that he lives our values with passion every day. Freeing him from operational responsibilities to focus his energy on our customers and culture will help us become even more responsive to the market and deeply attuned to the transformation happening in today’s data centers.

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“NetApp is a tremendous source of pride for me—I am happy to share my passion and enthusiasm for this company, our solutions, and our people with our customers every day,” added Tom Mendoza. “We have proven time and again that we deliver superior value for a variety of critical customer needs—and our customers have rewarded us with strong growth.
Spending more time with our customers and injecting even more of their feedback into the company will be a true pleasure.”

The Role of Vice Chairman The position of vice chairman is a newly created role at NetApp. This is not a board of directors position, but a company position. The position’s charter is to be the chief customer advocate and champion of customer concerns, bringing them back into NetApp to shape product development efforts and spot emerging enterprise trends. The vice chairman of the company is also instrumental in infusing the NetApp culture into our growing workforce
around the world.

Tom Mendoza joined NetApp in 1994 as the head of North American sales and has served as the
company’s president since 2000. Mendoza has more than 31 years as a high-technology executive. He has served in an advisory capacity on the board of directors of Netscreen (acquired by Juniper) and Rhapsody (acquired by Brocade) and currently serves on the board of Infoblox. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from the University of Notre Dame, is an alumnus of Stanford University's Executive Business Program, and is a guest lecturer at both institutions. In September 2000, the University of Notre Dame renamed its business school the Mendoza College of Business upon an endowment from Tom and his wife, Kathy.

Mendoza has been the keynote speaker for such diverse organizations as Oracle, Gartner, Veritas (now Symantec), Fujitsu-Siemens, and the United States Marine Corps. He is a highly motivational speaker and often speaks about corporate culture and leadership for organizations all over the world.

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