Virtana CEO and leadership

Kash Shaikh is President, Chief Executive Officer, and member Board of Directors at Virtana. He has more than 25 years of experience in the data center and the cloud industry. Kash has a track record of improving results in small and large fortune 100 public companies by making necessary strategic calls to drive profitable organic and inorganic growth.

Prior to Virtana, Shaikh was Global Vice President and General Manager of Solutions business at Dell Technologies, which included technology partner alliances. Under his leadership, this Solutions business grew by 28% to $1.77B. Before Dell, Shaikh held executive and leadership roles at public companies, including Ruckus Wireless, Riverbed Technologies, Hewlett Packard, Cisco, and Nortel Networks. Kash also serves as a Board Member of Ignited, a non-profit that provides learning opportunities around STEM for teachers.

Kash holds a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from NED University, a master’s in Electrical Engineering from Wichita State University, and an MBA from Boise State University.

Marion joined Virtana as CFO, with over 20 years of senior management and start-up experience, serving in executive roles from early stage through exit, including IPO and acquisitions. He has a passion for high-growth, disruptive, technology-driven ventures, and has held key leadership roles in seven startups. Marion’s successful track record includes his contributions to strong leadership teams, focused on effective business management and enterprise growth.

Marion most recently served as CFO for Hazelcast, successfully raising over $50M in equity and debt, while building out a full business team. He joined Hazelcast from Pulse Secure where he served as VP & GM of the company’s vADC Business Unit, overseeing all aspects of strategy, execution, and GTM with P&L responsibility for the company’s global vADC business.

Marion’s leadership has enhanced the success of Brocade Communications, Renewvia Energy, Micron Misting, and e-lingo. He was also part of the founding team at internet pioneer Inktomi, helping build the company from start-up to one of the most successful IPOs of the late 90’s. Marion holds a BS in Economics from Georgia State University and serves in advisory roles at several tech companies.

High-impact senior Marketing Leader with 20+ years of tech industry experience across multiple marketing disciplines including SaaS marketing, product marketing, competitive research, analyst relations and content marketing. Sound record of success in developing and implementing strategic B2B marketing plans, executing complex projects, and building sales tools within the information technology market.

Adept at translating complex concepts into actionable marketing execution integrated through marketing channels. Team leader with strong interpersonal and communication skills, possessing the ability to be a strategic adviser to the business.

IoT • SaaS Marketing • Cloud Solutions • GTM Strategy • Product Marketing • Product Launch • Sales Enablement • Business Development • Lead Generation • Demand Generation • Strategic Planning • Corporate Positioning (Brand, Website, Pitch & Demo), Growth Hacking • International Expansion • Vertical and Microvertical industry marketing • Strategic Alliances • Relationship Management • PR & Media • Social Media • Competitive Strategy

Steve has more than 20 years of experience leading high-performing sales teams across Fortune 100 companies and small aggressive start-ups, including Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Cisco, Avaya, 3Com, LuxN, and most recently, Pensando Systems. He excels at executing worldwide go-to-market strategies, competing at the highest levels to drive profitable revenue growth and help customers transform their businesses. He played key roles in HPE’s targeted acquisitions, divestitures, and core strategy-all while managing its $2 billion-dollar US Large Enterprise portfolio.

As CRO of Virtana, Steve is focused on the company’s expansion into the hybrid cloud segment, scaling the business with partnerships, while improving operational efficiencies.

Steve studied business at the University of Maryland and is proud to have earned his tireless work ethic and discipline during his six years in the United States Air Force. Outside of exceeding sales goals, Steve can be found spending time with family, traveling, playing golf, cycling, and hiking.

John Gentry leads the team that is responsible for bringing Virtual Instruments message and vision to the market. John has been with Virtual Instruments since early 2009, leading the WW solutions Consulting team, and will bring that knowledge of the customer to the marketing organization. John brings 18 years of experience in Marketing, Product Marketing, Sales and Sales Engineering in the Open Systems and Storage ecosystem. John was a double major in Economics and Sociology at the University of California, Santa Cruz and first entered the technology field as an marketing intern for Borland International, where he went on to be the first Product Marketing Manager for their Java Compiler. Since then he has held various positions at mid-sized Systems Integrators, Start-up colocation and managed service providers, and established storage networking companies CNT, McData and QLogic.