Western Digital EVP and GM Robert Soderbery, head of the NAND and SSD business unit, is leaving on January 2.
The storage device builder currently has two divisions: hard disk drives (HDD) and flash. The latter covers its NAND joint venture with Kioxia, and its SSD production and sales. The HDD business was run by EVP and GM Ashley Gorakhpurwalla and the flash division by Soderbery, with both reporting to CEO David Goeckeler.
With WD splitting into two separate businesses – one for HDDs and the other for flash – CEO Goeckeler announced he’d run the flash biz and Irving Tan, EVP global operations, will be the HDD business’s CEO. This clearly meant a downgrade for both Soderbery and Gorakhpurwalla’s roles. Gorakhpurwalla quit Western Digital and became head of Lenovo’s Infrastructure Solutions Group (ISG) in October.
Soderbery has decided to exit the drive maker as well, but with no destination yet revealed. A Western Digital SEC 8K filing discloses the bare bones of this. It reads: “Soderbery is entitled to receive Tier I severance benefits under the Severance Plan.” That means, we understand, a not inconsiderable amount:
- A lump sum severance payment equivalent to 24 months of base salary.
- A pro-rata bonus for the fiscal year in which termination occurs, based on target performance metrics.
- Outstanding time-based stock options and restricted stock units (RSUs) are treated as though the executive remained employed for an additional six months, allowing partial accelerated vesting.
- Performance-based equity awards are governed by his specific plan terms.
- Up to 18 months of COBRA premium reimbursement for medical, dental, and vision coverage, provided the executive does not obtain equivalent coverage elsewhere.
- Coverage of professional outplacement services for up to 12 months.
Wedbush analyst Matt Bryson tells subscribers: “We see this news as a disappointing update for Western Digital/SanDisk. Rob, in our view, was one of the company’s key executives, who at one point looked to likely head SanDisk following the upcoming split … Even though we would have preferred a SanDisk with Mr Soderbery, this event doesn’t shift our view that the forthcoming spin-off of SanDisk is likely to create value for WDC shareholders and also that even with NAND trending more poorly than might have been expected this quarter, that Q2’25 and beyond look more promising for WDC and Kioxia given the expected rightsizing of customer client SSD and handset module inventories as well as the ramp of BiCS 8 (which we believe will significantly elevate WDC and Kioxia’s ability to compete).”
It would be fun if Soderbery joined Kioxia. Then he could have face-to-face meetings with Goeckeler.
