Executive Summit

Raghu Raghuram joined VMware in 2003 and currently serves as the company’s CEO. He is an industry thought leader and has successfully steered the company’s strategy and technology evolution across VMware’s rich history.

During his tenure at VMware, Raghuram has held multiple leadership roles, most recently Chief Operating Officer, Products and Cloud Services, where he had responsibility for all of VMware’s product and service offerings and centralized services, support and operational functions. Prior, he led the company’s software-defined data center business as the executive vice president and general manager, where he was responsible for the division’s strategy, business and product planning and engineering execution. Before, he led the company’s cloud infrastructure and management business as the general manager, and led worldwide product marketing, product management and business planning for the company, and served as part of the leadership team that took the company through its initial IPO. Raghuram began his career at VMware running product management for ESX and vSphere.

Prior to VMware, Raghuram held product management and marketing roles at AOL, Bang Networks and Netscape. Raghuram holds an MBA from the Wharton School of Business and a Master's degree in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai.

As President of VMware, Sumit Dhawan leads the company’s go-to-market functions including WW Sales, Customer Experience and Success, Strategic Ecosystem and Industry Solutions, Marketing, and Communications. With over 25 years of experience in the tech industry, Sumit is a seasoned executive with a proven track record of building and running market-leading businesses. He is a strong advocate for delivering an exceptional experience to customers and partners, and for supporting diverse teams, inclusive cultures and equitable environments that encourage the best in everyone.

Sumit previously served as VMware’s Chief Customer Experience Officer, managing global teams responsible for professional services, technical support and customer success. Prior to that, he was Chief Executive Officer of Instart, a startup delivering innovations in web application performance and security services. 

Before leading Instart, Sumit served as the general manager of VMware’s End-User Computing business, establishing the company’s leadership in mobile and unified endpoint management and desktop virtualization. He has also held a number of executive roles at Citrix spanning the engineering, product development, marketing, and general management functions.

Sumit holds an MBA from the Warrington College of Business at the University of Florida, an MS in Computer Science from the University of Minnesota, and a BS in Computer Science from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT).

Laura Heisman  joined VMware in February 2022 as chief marketing officer. As CMO, Heisman is responsible for leading all aspects of the Global Marketing organization, which includes Corporate and Brand, Partner, Developer, Segment and Field Marketing.

Heisman is a marketing and communications executive with 25+ years of experience in reaching enterprise, developer, consumer and corporate audiences. Most recently, she was Vice President of Communications and Corporate Marketing and a member of the GitHub leadership team. There she elevated awareness and built developer fans of the largest and most advanced development platform in the world. Prior to joining GitHub, Heisman spent more than a decade at Citrix, serving as Vice President of Communications leading the worldwide communications and brand awareness program. She has also led marketing and communications roles for a variety of global brands and technology startups. 

Heisman holds a bachelor of arts in communications from San Diego State University. She has also served as executive sponsor for Women Employee Resource Groups and mentors women in technology.