On January 30, 2026, Mark Adams notified the board of directors (the ?Board?) of Penguin Solutions, Inc. (together with its subsidiaries, the ?Company?) of his retirement and resigned from his position as President of the Company and resigned as a member of the Board, effective February 1, 2026. In addition, Mr. Adams will no longer stand for election as a member of the Board at the Company?s upcoming Annual Meeting of Stockholders scheduled to be held on February 6, 2026. On January 30, 2026, the Board appointed Kash Shaikh to succeed Mr. Adams as the Company?s President and Chief Executive Officer, effective February 2, 2026.
Upon the recommendation of its Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee, the Board also appointed Mr. Shaikh to serve as a Class III director of the Board, effective February 2, 2026. Mr. Shaikh will also serve as the Company?s principal executive officer. To ensure a smooth transition, Adams will remain with the Company as an advisor for nine months.
Shaikh brings more than three decades of technology leadership and operational experience to Penguin Solutions, with a proven track record of driving growth, innovation and customer-centric execution across enterprise software, SaaS and AI infrastructure markets. Before joining the Company, Mr. Shaikh, age 56, served as President and Chief Executive Officer and a member of the Board of Directors of Securonix, Inc., a cybersecurity SaaS company offering Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) solutions powered by agentic AI, from July 2024 to February 2026. Prior to Securonix, Mr. Shaikh served as President and Chief Executive Officer and a member of the Board of Directors of Virtana Corporation, a hybrid cloud optimization and AI infrastructure observability software company, from November 2020 to February 2024.
Earlier in his career, Mr. Shaikh served as Global Vice President and General Manager of the Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions business at Dell Technologies, Inc. Mr. Shaikh has also held executive and leadership positions at infrastructure companies including Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company, Cisco Systems, Inc., Ruckus Wireless, Inc., and Nortel Networks Corporation. Mr. Shaikh holds a Bachelor of Engineering from the NED University of Engineering and Technology, a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from Wichita State University, and a Master of Business Administration from Boise State University.
