Problem, Value, People: Why I Joined Nasuni

Nasuni has a phenomenal business, averaging 30% growth in annual recurring revenue over the past five years with top decile gross revenue retention rates of over 98% and net revenue retention rate of 118%, a testament to Nasuni’s ability to retain and expand customers. The company solves a critical problem for enterprise data management with modern, scalable cloud technology. The people here are focused, passionate, direct (in a great way), and up for a laugh.

To me, Nasuni has a compelling story that deserves to be told to a much bigger audience. As Nasuni’s new Senior Vice President, Business & Corporate Development, I’m planning to help tell that story and accelerate our growth by strengthening cloud relationships and driving new partnerships. Before I get into my role, allow me to detail the three main reasons I signed on for Nasuni’s next phase.

1. The problem we’re solving today; efficient disruption

One of the main reasons Nasuni’s business has been growing at 30% a year is that we are addressing a massive problem. I’ve been in the IT infrastructure business for much of my career, with experience across data infrastructure, security, management, and cloud. I see value in disruption and the role that Nasuni is playing in disrupting the legacy NAS market with a modern cloud-based approach is compelling in both the customer and partner context. Disruption equals opportunity.

When I look at the landscape today, Nasuni is at the leading edge of a fundamental shift in infrastructure. Enterprise data is growing rapidly and large organizations are moving away from distributed silos to globally unified hybrid cloud storage platforms. They require scale, security, and performance, and Nasuni delivers all three through a cost-effective SaaS platform. This has translated into success and traction across industries, segments and geographies. We have the right technology and the ideal enterprise architecture for deeper partner integration. There is so much more we can do as a company.

2. Unlocking new data value

Over the course of my career in technology, I’ve worked closely with all the major buying centers and stakeholders within organizations, from the CFO and CIO to line-of-business leaders and IT managers. What these different groups and people have in common is that data is at the core of what they do – and the increasing importance of data has the ability to propel Nasuni to the forefront.

The impact of Nasuni’s technology has the potential to expand beyond solving today’s problems around scale, security, and fast, shared access to data. When you unify dozens or even hundreds of silos through a single cloud platform, you are doing more than delivering cost savings and operational efficiencies. You have the potential to unlock hidden value in this newly holistic dataset.

Artificial intelligence, data intelligence, and advanced analytics tools are making it clear that the greatest insights are derived from the largest datasets. Nasuni not only unifies customer data but gives customers unprecedented visibility and access into that data. The AI and data intelligence revolution is going to solidify Nasuni’s role as a pillar of any organization’s data strategy in the decade ahead. Arthur C. Nielsen’s quote rings true today; “The price of light is less than the cost of darkness.”

3. The people

I have been incredibly fortunate to work with all kinds of people in the technology space, coast to coast and on virtually every continent, and I’m already enamored with the focus and directness of my fellow “Nasunistas” (yes, that’s what we call ourselves). The team knows and understands Nasuni’s value, what we can do for customers, and our current and potential role in the market. Leadership is clear about how we are all going to push Nasuni forward into our next growth phase.

My charter is to advance our cloud relationships and develop new strategic business partnerships. There are tremendous integration opportunities for us beyond our vital relationships with Microsoft, AWS and Google Cloud, including with known technology leaders in the data and application space. We can partner with these companies, bringing the best of our technologies to deliver meaningful value to our shared customers. As my inner ‘Captain Obvious’ would say……Nasuni is going to be aggressively pursuing strategic partners! A quick shout-out to one of my favorite types of partners…Channel Partners. Nasuni is fortunate to have a world-class Channel Chief in Matt Grantham and we’ll be working closely together on our respective missions.

OK, it’s time to get to work. Ultimately, this is all about scale, and Nasuni is optimized for scale at every level, from the core architecture up. I look forward to seeing you in the market as I am doing everything I can to help this company scale, and along with my ecosystem colleagues, we can transform the way enterprises manage data, together.