On Growth of 600%, WekaIO Appoints Ken Grohe as President and Chief Revenue Officer

CAMPBELL, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–#AI—WekaIO™ (Weka), the innovation leader in high-performance, scalable file storage for data-intensive applications, today announced the appointment of Ken Grohe as President and Chief Revenue Officer (CRO). Ken will lead the company’s global go-to-market organization and report to CEO and Co-Founder Liran Zvibel.

Grohe comes to Weka from Samsung’s Stellus Technologies, a leading data systems company that addresses the way companies capture, store, access, and process the unstructured data, where he served as CRO and drove the company’s overall go-to-market strategy. A highly seasoned veteran of the industry, Grohe previously served as President of SignNow, SVP and GM of Barracuda Networks, and CRO of Virident, a Western Digital Company. Grohe also had an impressive 25-year career at Dell EMC, finishing as VP and GM with a focus on the global flash business.

With over three decades in the SaaS and storage industry, Grohe has deep experience and possesses a rare dedication and passion for winning that is based on a customer-centric perspective. In addition to his roles at major tech companies, Grohe is an advisor and board member of many Silicon Valley fast-rising companies.

WekaIO saw 600% revenue growth in 2019 and continues to accelerate its growth in 2020. This meteoric trajectory is fueled by a unique ability to impact businesses by helping them to modernize AI workflows with software-defined storage systems optimized for NVMe and the hybrid cloud. Weka empowers companies to solve the most difficult IT infrastructure problems so they can extract maximum value from their data and expedite time-to-market. WekaFS™, the world’s fastest parallel file system and Weka’s flagship product, maximizes CPU and GPU performance and ROI by eliminating I/O bottlenecks to accelerate the data-intensive applications commonly found in artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), deep learning, life sciences, and financial analytics.

“Ken’s expertise in this market and keen understanding of the customer journey will be the catalyst that drives the next phase of growth for Weka,” said Liran Zvibel. “We welcome him to the leadership team at a key time when we are realizing rapid customer adoption, significant revenue growth, and major strategic partnerships. Ken’s role will be influential in executing the company’s vision to become the de-facto solution for enterprise storage on premises and in the cloud.”

“I have known Ken for decades. He is a fantastic Go To Market executive with a proven successful track record that will absolutely help move Weka to the next level,” said Steve Duplessie, founder and senior analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group. “His leadership, customer centricity, energy, and enthusiasm combined with Weka’s killer technology can’t help but be a winning combination.”

“We’ve been a proud partner in the Weka Innovation Network (WIN) for some time now, and we are excited to see the growth in the Weka leadership team,” commented Stan Wysocki, president at Mark III Systems, a WIN Leader partner. “We look forward to working closely with Ken and the extended Weka team on our AI/ML, HPC, and analytics solutions offerings for our joint clients.”

“We are delighted to see the Weka leadership team grow with strategic appointments such as Ken’s,” said Mike Thompson, CEO of Groupware Technology, a WIN Leader Partner. “Weka provides a modern storage infrastructure that accelerates performance and solves big problems. With Ken’s strength of industry experience and sincere drive to steer the company forward, the future looks bright for Weka.”

“I have watched Weka’s incredible growth since its launch from stealth in 2017, and I have a great appreciation for the work of the team to date. Time and time again, Weka has proven they are delivering a highly differentiated and disruptive storage technology—with epic performance at any scale for customers with data-intensive workloads. Therefore, I am grateful to join the leadership team and to have the opportunity to leverage my experience and proven success in this industry to help Weka grow exponentially and soar to new heights,” added Grohe.

In addition to being an international best-selling author, Grohe holds a degree from Stanford University Graduate School of Business and a BS, cum laude, in Management from Boston College.

On the wave of this growth trajectory, Weka also recently announced hires in other strategic positions including chief financial officer and head of AI and strategic alliances.

For more information on the Weka leadership team, go to: https://www.weka.io/company/about-us

To find a partner in the Weka Innovation Network, go to: https://www.weka.io/partners

For more information on the Enterprise Strategy Group, go to: https://www.esg-global.com/

“Leveraging NetSuite & Your Mobile Device to Make More $$$: Closing the Last Mile on Business Consumption with Customer Centricity,“ by Ken Grohe, is available on Amazon.

About WekaIO

Weka offers WekaFS, the modern file system that uniquely empowers organizations to solve the newest, biggest problems holding back innovation. Optimized for NVMe and the hybrid cloud, Weka handles the most demanding storage challenges in the most data-intensive technical computing environments, delivering truly epic performance at any scale. Its modern architecture unlocks the full capabilities of today’s data center, allowing businesses to maximize the value of their high-powered IT investments. Weka helps industry leaders reach breakthrough innovations and solve previously unsolvable problems.

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WekaIO, WekaIO Matrix, WekaFS, Weka AI, Weka FabricX, Weka Innovation Network, Weka AI logo, WIN logo, and the WekaIO logo are trademarks of WekaIO, Inc.

Contacts

Waters Communications

Sarah Shkargi

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