Harv Bhela Chief Product Officer, NetApp

NetApp, Inc. appointed Harvinder (Harv) Bhela to the newly-created role of chief product officer to accelerate the ongoing transformation of the company into a multi-cloud, storage, and data services leader.

Reporting to CEO George Kurian, he will join the company in January 2022.

His appointment follows the June 2021 announcement of the retirement of Brad Andersen, GM of hybrid cloud business at the end of FY22. Anthony Lye, EVP and GM of cloud management and platform services business unit, will continue to lead the company’s growth and innovation in emerging technologies, furthering its leadership position in cloud operations (CloudOps), also reporting to George Kurian.

Bhela joins NetApp after nearly 25 years at Microsoft, where he held multiple executive positions, overseeing the creation of several products that set industry standards and created multi-billion-dollar categories with billions of users. Most recently, he served as corporate VP of the Microsoft 365 security, compliance and management business, which he grew to more than $10 billion in annual revenue.

“Product leadership and breakthrough innovation are the foundation of NetApp’s business strategy and success. NetApp is at a critical point in the transformation of our company, with great momentum in our inexorable march to $1 billion in cloud ARR. Under Anthony’s leadership we have successfully incubated a cloud storage and data services business and an emerging cloud operations business,” said Kurian. “Looking ahead, we have the opportunity to accelerate the expansion of our cloud storage and data services business, while continuing a focused approach to scaling our CloudOps business. I am excited to have Harv Bhela join NetApp’s leadership team, with his 25+ years of experience building industry-defining software categories and cloud services that are used by billions of users every day.“

Integrating the cloud storage, data services business and hybrid cloud business under Bhela’s leadership, NetApp will further accelerate the pivot to cloud of its storage business while maintaining leadership in flash and object storage. At the same time, the company will also be able to pursue the focused scaling of its CloudOps business under Lye’s leadership.

“I am thrilled to join NetApp at such a transformative time in the company’s history, and I look forward to working with the team on accelerating the growth of the company,” said Bhela. “The next gen of businesses are data-driven, digital businesses. NetApp is well positioned to deliver differentiated multi-cloud, storage, and data services solutions that allow them to unlock enormous business value in this ‘age of data.’ I was fortunate to play a key role in the unprecedented transformation of Microsoft, and I believe NetApp is poised to undergo a similarly successful transition beyond what the market has already seen.”

Before leading Microsoft 365 Security, Bhela built the company’s Exchange business, turning Office 365 into the world’s largest productivity cloud, and was instrumental in the launch of Windows 10.

He holds a Master’s in Computer Science from the University of Minnesota and a Bachelor of Engineering from the University of Mumbai.

“I am proud of the success we’ve achieved in public cloud,” said Lye. “We have delivered breakthrough technology innovations and built unique relationships with the hyperscalers, while successfully acquiring new companies and leveraging third-party IT platforms to bring in new business models. I look forward to leading the company’s continued expansion into emerging technologies and driving our leadership in CloudOps.”