Western Digital’s new boss CEO David Goeckeler is making his mark by reorganising the flash and disk operations into two business units.
WD previously segmented its business between Data Center Devices & Solutions, Client Devices, & Client Solutions, while also providing total revenue results for HDD and Flash.
WD said the reorg “will align the company’s diversified portfolio to an acceleration strategy designed for growth, profitability and development agility.”
The company aims to deliver “both Flash and HDD market-leading innovation through highly focused product development organisations … and uniquely address broad customer storage needs from edge devices to cloud infrastructure.”
Goeckeler, who joined WD from Cisco in March this year, said in the press statement: “With Flash and HDD product development businesses each focused on driving the storage innovation our customers need to support a broader set of use cases, the company is uniquely positioned in the age of cloud-based digital business.”
Goeckeler has hired ex-Cisco guy Robert Soderbery to run the flash business.
Soderbery said: ”What captured my imagination about Western Digital’s Flash business is that it has the potential to power the growth of every interesting end market in technology, including cloud, mobile, gaming, video and intelligent devices.”
Soderbery ran the $20bn+ enterprise networking business at Cisco. He left the company in 2016 to become an advisor to Rubrik, a senior advisor at McKinsey, and President at Uplift, a travel financing firm.
Goeckeler has hired headhunters to find a boss for the disk drive business unit. The reorg has prompted the departure of Mike Cordano, President and COO. He has teamed up with Mark Long, former EVP for strategy and corporate strategy, who left WD last year, as co-founders and partners of Prime Impact Capital.
