Ray O'Farrell is VMware's new CTO

VMware has appointed veteran Ray O’Farrell as its Chief Technology Officer and Chief Development Officer. O’Farrell brings more than 20 years of Software Engineering, Product Delivery and Global R&D Innovation Experience to VMware leadership team.

O’Farrell succeeds Ben Fathi who served as VMware’s chief technology officer from 2014-2015.

In the combined CTO and CDO role, he will be responsible for orchestration across all of VMware’s R&D Business Units and will lead VMware’s CTO team. O’Farrell most recently served as GM, Software-Defined Data Center Division. This appointment is effective immediately and O’Farrell will continue to report to Pat Gelsinger, VMware CEO.

“As VMware continues to evolve its research and development efforts, Ray O’Farrell will work in close partnership with our business unit leaders and world class R&D teams to drive industry-leading innovation,” commented Pat Gelsinger, CEO, VMware. “He brings extensive and invaluable experience in managing a wide range of our global R&D teams as well as developing and releasing many of our most impactful products.”

VMware veteran

O’Farrell is a long time VMware veteran, having joined the company in 2003 to build out the storage technologies of VMware ESX (later VMware vSphere). Over his tenure, he has led development teams across the entire VMware global R&D footprint and product portfolio.

Before joining VMware, O’Farrell led product development teams at Microtec/Mentor-Graphics, Improv Systems, Industrial and Scientific Imaging and Ashling Microsystems.

O’Farrell holds a Bachelor of Engineering in Electronics and a Master of Engineering in Computer Science, both from the University of Limerick in Ireland.