Purnima Padmanabhan: Passion Principle

Title: VP and general manager, cloud automation, VMware

Base of operations: Palo Alto, Calif.

Time at VMware: 5 years

How has your career journey evolved over the years?

I have been in the technology game pretty much right from the beginning. I actually started in the chip industry back in the 90s. I was doing chip design and then worked for a startup company. That's when I got very interested in entrepreneurship and building companies, so I went back to business school.

Post-business school, I have been in the cloud industry. I first joined Loudcloud. That was a really amazing journey, being part of that team and building out what I would call generation 1.0 of cloud.

After Loudcloud was sold, I joined a company called Marimba, where I was responsible for building out the data center management business. Within a few years, we sold that to BMC Software. As more of a startup entrepreneurial type, I didn't think I wouldn't fit in. But I was pleasantly surprised and ended up running data center management, all the way from monitoring, troubleshooting, the remedy platform, etc.

I eventually transitioned into helping launch another startup, and then started incubating my own startup in the container management space. I kept hearing from my customers that they wanted this capability, and I wanted to be part of a broader solution. Over the years, VMware had tried to recruit me several times, but that's when the conversation really started. I thought this might be a perfect opportunity to take all my learnings and build it in a larger company, offering customers one solution set. And that's how I ended up joining VMware.