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VMware Blockchain is Bringing Ethereum to the Enterprise

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Becoming Cloud Smart: Learn from CVS Health

Sumit and Roshan HERO

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From Cloud Chaos to Cloud Smart

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VMware Wins Gold at 2022 Cybersecurity Excellence Awards

Charting a Path to Tomorrow’s Success HERO

Charting a Path to Tomorrow’s Success HERO - VMware News &amp; Stories - ANZ

From Vision to Reality: Charting a Path to Tomorrow’s Success

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Chip Childers Joins VMware as Chief Open Source Officer

New Chief Open Source Officer FB

Nicola Acutt_Davos Net Zero Panel - VMware News &amp; Stories - ANZ

A Davos Spring: A First-Timer’s Impressions from the World Economic Forum

Nicola Acutt_Davos Net Zero Panel

Digital Healthcare Is Growing in Trust & Optimism | VMware News & Stories

Digital Healthcare Is Growing in Trust & Optimism - VMware News &amp; Stories - ANZ

Multi-Cloud Is Giving &#8220;Holistic&#8221; Healthcare Opportunities to APJ Providers 

Digital Healthcare Is Growing in Trust &#038; Optimism

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VMware Reports Fiscal Year 2023 First Quarter Results

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Broadcom to Acquire VMware for Approximately $61 Billion in Cash and Stock

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Transformational-Change hero - VMware News &amp; Stories - ANZ

The Terror — and Thrill — of Transformational Change

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Many people still perceive climate change and ESG initiatives as areas that can only be addressed at a much higher level of influence, beyond the control of day to day jobs and efforts. However, If you take a closer look at how change is taking place over the years around ESG, the power of action no longer exclusively rests with large corporations and governments - it sits with people and communities. If working at VMware has taught me anything, it’s that we need to accelerate our ideas into action, choosing the role we want to play, tracking our progress, and making choices now to drive positive impact for the long term! 

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Personally, having a daughter accelerated the need for me to actively do something that would help drive an impact. Being a part of VMware’s global technical account management team, I integrate a customer success program to ensure that our solutions, products and services are really helping businesses achieve the right outcomes, while providing valuable feedback to our engineering and product teams. In short: I’m a customer advocate looking for ways to help customers improve their businesses and, as such, I started exploring how I could use this position to make a difference. I’m very grateful to have opportunities like this platform to be able to voice my aspirations and dreams of a better future. 

Helping customers achieve sustainability goals

I joined VMware around eight years ago, and in 2020 I was very lucky to become a member of the Office of the CTO (OCTO). As a member of the OCTO and a sustainability ambassador at VMware, I gained the opportunity to understand different ways of how our VMware solutions can help customers with avoidance and reduction of their carbon footprint. Leveraging a bit of my previous experience as a TAM, I can provide customers with rich technical environmental analysis for optimisation and platform health, so I started working with amazing colleagues and partners to look at how their configuration data can also investigate and pinpoint areas for decarbonisation improvement. This is where the same type of telemetry can be used to measure, monitor and benchmark customer’s carbon footprint, extracting accurate business insights to help transform their environment and help them achieve carbon reduction goals. But this is only the first step. 

As more companies digitally transform, maintaining accountability towards sustainability targets is becoming more critical. As a whole, ESG and corporate sustainability are part of a very topical boardroom conversation in many large organisations, and we are already seeing green agendas driving enormous change in the ICT industry. There is endless potential for decarbonisation and continuous improvement due to the rich data available - companies just need to know where and how to find it. 

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Being a Sustainability Ambassador at VMware

At VMware, we hold <a href="https://news.vmware.com/company/vmwares-culture-built-epic2-values">the culture of EPIC2 values</a> very close to our hearts and strive to focus on Execution, Passion, Integrity, Customers, and Community in every facet of our job functions. We apply these as key principles to become a force for good, promoting change in our lives, in our customers and within our community. Putting into practice, initiatives like VMware’s <a href="https://news.vmware.com/anz/esg/vmwares-2022-esg-report-how-were-accelerating-into-action">yearly ESG report </a>help us keep in check with our progress and goals.

Other Sustainability Ambassadors that are part of the team come from various lines of business, but the core message prevails: to help everyone become more conscious about sustainability, and to help customers meet sustainability goals through services and solutions. 

Envisioning a sustainable future

It’s great to see that the next generation is very passionate about climate change. However, for solving a global problem like climate change, we need to see more collaboration and unified approach across countries, industries and geo-political leadership. It would be phenomenal if formal regulatory bodies from different countries and organisations created measures to help govern and ensure proper carbon tracking and reporting. It is unfortunately very deregulated at the moment, but with a global standard to work towards and reliable data, we could be in a better position to help progress worldwide standards and define frameworks for everyday consumption of carbon. 

We all live a highly consumer-driven lifestyle, so let’s imagine this future for our next generation: if we could check the carbon footprint of each commodity as an “energy star rating,” wouldn’t it help us envision the real cost of it and reevaluate our choices, pushing companies to also change how they make their products? I’m thrilled to see that some businesses are already taking steps in that direction, like some of the biggest banks, who help customers track their personal carbon emissions via their banking apps. Some of our large mining and resources customers in Australia have announced and are working towards significant targets such as 50% carbon reduction by 2030, expanding into their scope 1 and scope 2 carbon footprint contributions which could amount to a lot, given the industry output. We have a range of great customers taking a long-term view, where <a href="https://cloud.vmware.com/providers/zero-carbon" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">VMware and our Zero Carbon Committed</a> partners are actively collaborating and helping with their sustainability business outcomes.

So as you can tell, data and actionable business intelligence with green metrics are just one of the ways that technology can be used to build a better future. Now I pose the question back to you: how do you envision a sustainable future? 

Thinking of more ESG initiatives, I am also pleased to share that VMware’s 2022 ESG Report is now live. You can find out more about our initiatives and commitments <a href="https://news.vmware.com/anz/esg/vmwares-2022-esg-report-how-were-accelerating-into-action">here</a>.

Many people still perceive climate change and ESG initiatives as areas that can only be addressed at a much higher level of influence, beyond the control of day to day jobs and efforts. However, If you take a closer look at how change is taking place over the years around ESG, the power of action […]

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Helping customers reduce their carbon footprint to build a better future - VMware News &amp; Stories - ANZ

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Over the past decade, challenger brands have shaken up the status quo in the business world by pioneering a digital-smart strategy, centred on accelerating innovation via software in the cloud. There are unique qualities that distinguish a digital-smart business: an ability to harness machine learning to turbocharge business insights; a focus on taking automation to the next level; and an obsession with driving the next leap forward in employee engagement and productivity. 

While challenger brands pioneered this digital-smart approach, established incumbents are investing heavily in every industry sector, from education and banking to healthcare, retail, and public sector. That explains the 400-percent growth in cloud-native apps over the past three years: from a total of 72 million in 2019 to an estimated 310 million cloud-native apps in the world today, according to IDC.1

The Great Re-Platforming

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But while we’ve made progress on the path to digital, almost every business leader I talk to says the same thing: “We’re not moving fast enough.” Many CIOs describe this current era as ‘The Great Re-Platforming’ of the enterprise – an opportunity to rethink and reshape the core operations that propel every business. In their view, this re-platforming has slowed, and they call out three roadblocks that are holding us back. First, we’re confronting a global-scale gap in critical skills, from software-development to cloud operations. Second, there’s the sheer ‘weight’ of existing enterprise apps, which have proven difficult to modernise and migrate to the cloud. The third roadblock is the fragmented nature of running and securing apps across multiple clouds.

Against that backdrop, organisations have discovered that successfully re-platforming the enterprise requires you to build a “cloud-smart” architecture – one that allows your teams to navigate the inherent complexity of today’s multi-cloud world. At the core of a cloud-smart approach is the ability to drive a consistent, secure, and cost-efficient operating model across the various clouds you rely on.

A survey we conducted this Summer with more than 5,000 organisations across the globe revealed that only 20 percent have reached the tipping point where the strategic benefits of multi-cloud outweigh the challenges, including spiralling costs and cyber-security vulnerabilities.2 In other words, only one in five businesses identify themselves as cloud smart today. What is the right path forward for the remaining 80 percent of organisations that want to implement a cloud-smart approach?

A Typical Journey to Cloud

In my conversations with customers, they consistently describe a journey to the cloud that breaks down into three distinct phases:

Phase 1: Cloud First – This was the initial embrace of public cloud that began a dozen or so years ago, with a big focus on building customer-facing mobile apps in a single cloud. This first wave of cloud innovation drove huge advances in how businesses operate and how they engage their end customers.

Over time, we saw a broad shift from a single-cloud mindset to a multi-cloud model, with 75% of organisations now relying on 2 or more public clouds.3 This makes a lot of sense for a variety of reasons. First, CIOs want to tap into the tremendous amount of innovation being driven by the leading public-cloud players. Developers want access to best-of-breed services in different clouds to differentiate the apps they’re building. And every organisation wants greater choice and flexibility, which helps them avoid lock-in with a single service provider.

Phase 2: Cloud Chaos – This describes the current state that 80 percent of organisations are living and breathing each day, a world where greater cloud choice has led to a massive spike in complexity. Most report that building new apps is slow and cumbersome, and managing their entire app portfolio across disparate clouds is difficult and expensive. No wonder: each cloud requires their teams to use proprietary tools that are siloed and incompatible with one another. Meanwhile, for the average employee, getting fast, secure access to critical apps from anywhere is imperative, yet it’s often a challenge. All this complexity has broad repercussions on the business, from managing costs to attracting and retaining top talent.

Phase 3: Cloud Smart – This is the desired destination of every multi-cloud journey: a more sophisticated, mature approach where you have the freedom to select the right cloud for the right app, based on the needs of the individual app. Customers I talk to who have successfully achieved a cloud-smart approach tend to describe three big shifts they drove as part of their move from Cloud Chaos to Cloud Smart:

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Cloud Smart in Action: S&P Global

One of my favourite examples of a company accelerating innovation via a cloud-smart approach is S&P Global, a well-respected brand and a leader in business-intelligence services. Like many organisations, S&P Global was struggling with complexity and the “need for speed” in how they build and deploy apps. <a href="https://youtu.be/ctYLjUZ2X6I%C2%A0">Watch the video</a> to see how they tackled challenges to serve customers better.

Business Outcomes from a Cloud-Smart Approach

When we asked cloud-smart organisations to describe the benefits they’ve gained from their multi-cloud operation, they spoke of advantages that shape both their competitiveness and their top-line results. For example, 97 percent of cloud-smart organisations say their approach to multi-cloud has improved their revenue growth4, and 96 percent say it has improved their profitability.5 At the same time, 96 percent of cloud-smart organisations say they are better able to recruit and retain top talent6, and 92 percent report that it’s easier to manage their data wherever they reside.7

The Ultimate Destination

Moving from a state of cloud chaos to a position of strength as a cloud-smart organisation is neither simple nor easy. There’s a lot we can learn from the small subset of businesses that have successfully navigated this transition. Whether you’re a challenger born in the cloud or an established player, the ultimate destination is a multi-cloud environment that empowers your teams to move faster and spend less – powered by a consistent operating model that extends across any cloud. This is the foundation of a digital-smart business.

Watch Raghu Raghuram’s keynote from VMware Explore where he outlines the vision for cloud smart as the destination of every multi-cloud journey.

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12019: IDC, 500 Million New Logical Applications: More Background, IDC #lcUS45622019, November 2019; 2022: IDC, 750 Million New Logical Applications: More Background,  Doc # US48441921, December 2021

2-7VMware survey of 5,000 organizations globally, July 2022

The ultimate destination is a multi-cloud environment that empowers your teams to move faster and spend less.

From Cloud Chaos to Cloud Smart - VMware News &amp; Stories - ANZ

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The Ethereum technology stack — from EVM, smart contracts, APIs, developer tools, and its overall ecosystem — is the broadest and most mature stack on which to build blockchain networks. Yet, there are several critical gaps Ethereum platforms have that make them difficult to use for enterprise use cases, such as lack of robust privacy and scalability for complex workloads, governance mechanisms, and enterprise-class operational support characteristics. To address these gaps, VMware is launching <a href="https://octo.vmware.com/author/blockchain/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">VMware Blockchain for Ethereum</a>, available now in beta.

Blockchain technology provides a revolutionary business transformation opportunity for enterprises by allowing them to build distributed network ecosystems, multi-party applications, and digital asset experiences. The beta release of VMware Blockchain for Ethereum builds upon VMware’s enterprise blockchain platform for businesses to easily build, efficiently operate, and quickly scale Ethereum-based blockchain networks. It also gives customers flexibility and choice by adding Ethereum support in addition to its existing support for the Daml smart contract language.

“Over the last several years, we have seen application architectures evolve from being monolithic to being distributed,” said Kit Colbert, VMware CTO. “We are on the cusp of a new evolution in application architecture: decentralized applications running on blockchains that will power new multi-party workflows. To enable our enterprise customers to capitalize on this evolution, we are building VMware Blockchain for Ethereum, the first enterprise-focused Ethereum stack with integrated privacy-preserving functionality. We are proud to have the Bank of Israel and Infosys as early adopters of the technology.”

Built for enterprise use cases, VMware Blockchain for Ethereum is an EVM compatible platform that will provide high throughput performance, unique ZKP-based programmable privacy capabilities, enterprise-grade operations, and governance features. The beta will support standard Ethereum APIs, commonly used development tools such as Truffle, Hardhat and Remix, and wallets like MetaMask to enable a seamless developer experience. To get started quickly, Solidity developers can deploy the new VMware Blockchain for Ethereum Developer Kit on their local machine in addition to vSphere and AWS cloud environments.

Since its launch in 2020, <a href="https://www.vmware.com/products/blockchain.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">VMware Blockchain</a> has provided a digital foundation customers like ASX and Broadbridge trust to power multi-party ecosystems that generate new revenue, increase efficiency and maintain a competitive edge.

The Bank of Israel is among the first customers to co-innovate with VMware Blockchain’s privacy-preserving functionality in a recent assessment of technologies for its Digital Shekel Project or CBDC.

“One of the six motivations the Bank of Israel has identified for a possible issuance of a Digital Shekel or CBDC is to enable the public to pay digitally while maintaining a limited level of privacy,” said Yoav Soffer, Advisor to the Deputy Governor, Bank of Israel. “The bank tested an innovative technology developed by VMware, which makes it possible for policy makers to define a periodic amount of digital payments that can be made anonymously. VMware was an excellent partner in exploring how technology could support policy goals in the future monetary system. Our joint journey in the exploration of VMware Blockchain and its privacy preserving technology was fascinating.”

VMware partnered with <a href="https://www.infosys.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Infosys</a>, a leading Global Systems Integrator and an industry leader in developing enterprise Blockchains. Infosys was one of the early adopters of VMware Blockchain for DAML and is now the first partner to develop a solution on VMware Blockchain for Ethereum. Expanding on their immense expertise in developing enterprise blockchain solutions, Infosys developed a <a href="https://www.infosys.com/services/blockchain/insights/management-solution.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Vital Records Management Solution</a> on VMware Blockchain for Ethereum. This offering will help government clients modernize records management and provide a superior digital experience for their citizens. The offering is available to customers as a free 60-day trial to try before use.

“Infosys is very happy to be the first partner to develop an important application for verification of vital records on VMware Blockchain. This offering will enable government agencies around the world to reduce their reliance on manual paper record processes, reduce fraud and lower operating costs while simultaneously offering superior citizen-centered experiences," said Gopikrishnan Konnanath, Senior Vice President, Global Head – Engineering Services and Blockchain, Infosys.

Customers interested in joining the VMware Blockchain for Ethereum beta program, <a href="https://via.vmw.com/3HlJCD" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">click here to apply</a>. For more information on VMware Blockchain for Ethereum, please <a href="https://octo.vmware.com/author/blockchain/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">click here</a>. <a href="https://www.infosys.com/services/blockchain/insights/management-solution.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Click here</a> to know more about Vital Records Management Solution.

VMware is launching VMware Blockchain for Ethereum, available now in beta, to address enterprise use cases.

VMware Blockchain is Bringing Ethereum to the Enterprise - VMware News &amp; Stories - ANZ

A key theme at this year’s <a href="https://www.vmware.com/explore/us.html?src=ps_62842e3f6213d&cid=7012H000001Kc4GQAS&gclid=Cj0KCQjw0oyYBhDGARIsAMZEuMsQL4ByQrq95bAvH0wOkgNWohwKGYtHprr3NQJkWslYoMERZh90FVgaAnf8EALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds">VMware Explore 2022</a> focused on how organisations navigate the challenges of moving from “cloud chaos” to “cloud smart.” With a cloud smart approach to building multi-cloud architectures, enterprises have the freedom to select the right cloud for the right app<a>. </a>(VMware CEO Raghu Raghuram shared additional perspective on <a href="https://news.vmware.com/vmware-explore/from-cloud-chaos-to-cloud-smart">cloud smart</a><a>.)</a>

During this year’s General Session, we discussed this journey in detail with one leading organisation and VMware customer – <a href="https://www.cvshealth.com/news-and-insights/articles/health-care-from-the-heart">CVS Health, one of America’s most innovative health solutions companies</a> with more than 9,600 pharmacy locations nationwide and over 300,000 employees. 85% of Americans live within 10 miles of a CVS pharmacy location, with 4.8 million consumers visiting a location daily, and 45 million unique digital consumers further expanding its online reach.

I was honoured to be joined on stage at VMware Explore by Roshan Navagamuwa, Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer of CVS Health, to learn more about how CVS Health leverages a “technology forward” cloud-smart strategy.

During one of the most uncertain periods in recently history, <a href="https://www.cvshealth.com/news-and-insights/articles/our-covid-19-response#:~:text=As%20a%20leading%20health%20solutions,administration%20to%20millions%20of%20people.">CVS Health played an instrumental role in responding to the challenges of COVID-19.</a> Since the pandemic began, it has administered more than 50 million vaccines and more than 32 million COVID-19 tests. The company continues to embrace innovation in order to meet the health needs of customers, including increasing mental and virtual health services.

Begin with a focus on organisational goals.

As Roshan put it, “We started with our imperatives as a health care business, which are to drive improved outcomes, lower costs, higher levels of engagement, and broader access to high quality care. Our initial focus was making the consumer experience easier and more convenient, leveraging smarter and more efficient technology.” He stressed the importance of enabling colleagues across CVS Health with the tools and capabilities they need to keep customer promises in a dynamic and fast-paced environment. Underpinning these consumer and colleague capabilities are cloud-based platforms and automated processes.

The journey to cloud smart requires taming complexity.

CVS Health’s cloud journey initially began with its digital and analytics team, expanding over time to include its broader community of application developers. Use cases grew quickly from scale-scale opportunities to products and experiences that are now core to the business.

In early stages of the cloud journey, teams worked with speed and loose coordination in a federated governance model. A few years ago, however, Roshan described reaching an inflection point with large independent implementations within each cloud provider that led to increased cost and complexity.

Roshan’s team took a step back and reset to a more enterprise-optimised approach by consolidating into one team managing an integrated hybrid multi-cloud service and centralised controls and governance. Today, CVS Health leverages a more cohesive hybrid multi-cloud operating model focused on its priorities of ensuring reliable, secure operation with financial control and accountability; an increasingly better developer experience; and reusable products that are easier to integrate.

All of these capabilities ultimately enable business value with the agility needed to deliver on CVS Health’s mission; an example can be seen in their ability to quickly build and integrate health equity analytics into its COVID-19 response, distributing millions of vaccines to underserved populations.

Break down silos as technology teams continue to converge in function.

Roshan and I also discussed the trend of convergence among technology teams. I know from my own conversation with many customers and CIOs that a common challenge has been organisations keeping cloud teams in their own silos. Many “cloud first” enterprises have set up a variety of siloed teams – public cloud operations, platform engineering, and private cloud teams. While the formation of these teams has helped organisations cultivate specialised skill sets, it has also often created complexity, confusion, and chaos.

Roshan shared how CVS Health tackled this challenge, converging multiple teams into a more cohesive cloud services team. This helped streamline a number of burdensome processes, optimise workloads, and drive more automation – ultimately shortening the journey from idea to working software. This was also true of the team’s approach to strengthening the colleague experience. “We converged disparate teams that delivered and supported colleague technology into one team, focused on colleague experience,” Roshan said. “We were intentional about the technology choices best suited to support a mobile workforce and our retail team members – especially our front-line health care workers like pharmacists and nurse practitioners.” As he shared with us, streamlining the colleague experience has allowed their focus to be centred on patients rather than burdensome manual processes.

VMware’s portfolio of cross-cloud services enables organisations to navigate their own journeys to cloud smart and ensure accelerated app dev, consistent enterprise infrastructure, and frictionless app-access experience.<a id="_msocom_1"></a><a id="_msocom_1"></a>

The promise of multi-cloud is enabling organisations to focus their time, energy, and resources on innovations that improve customer experience and accelerate growth. I was inspired to hear from Roshan how embracing the potential of cloud smart has helped to enable CVS Health’s impact in delivering consumer-centric health care.

Learn more about our <a href="https://news.vmware.com/vmware-explore-2022-media-kit" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">latest innovations announced at VMware Explore.</a>

With a cloud smart approach to building multi-cloud architectures, enterprises have the freedom to select the right cloud for the right app.

Becoming Cloud Smart: Learn from CVS Health - VMware News &amp; Stories - ANZ

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We are excited to announce that VMware NSX Advanced Load Balancer has won the <a href="https://www.scmagazine.com/news/application-security/best-web-application-solution-vmware-nsx-advanced-load-balancer-avi" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">2022 SC Award in Trust for the Best Web Application Solution</a>. The industry awards program is a prestigious and competitive cybersecurity award program, that recognizes organizations, individuals, and solutions that drive innovation and success.

Application security threats resulting from web attacks are among the most frequent types of breaches occurring today. VMware NSX Advanced Load Balancer is a true multi-cloud application services platform that empowers customers to deliver and protect their applications across on-premises, containers, or public cloud environments. It allows organizations to protect their multi-cloud applications with best-in-class Web Application Firewall (WAF), Bot Management, API (Application Programming Interface) protection, and more, based on a built-in analytics engine. These analytics provide visibility into the attacks against the applications, and it is the basis for the machine learning algorithms that empower customers to take the best security decisions. 

VMware has won across nine categories at the 2022 Cybersecurity Excellence Awards, demonstrating the company’s security innovation and commitment to keeping customers safe from cyberattacks.

I originally signed up for a half marathon. The 13.1-mile distance felt manageable, unlike the massive effort I imagined a full marathon would require. There was just one problem: I’ve never been good at doing things halfway.

With the idea of the big race nagging at me, I decided to push my training — week by week, my runs getting longer and more frequent. Before I knew it, I felt confident enough to take on the full 26.2 miles—something that only a few months before felt impossible.

What does running a marathon have to do with business? More than you think — especially when you’re in the <a href="https://news.vmware.com/tech-innovation/terror-thrill-transformational-change" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">business of transformation</a>.

I spend a lot of time talking with VMware’s customers. Just about all of them tell me the same thing: Their company’s future success depends on having a resilient, nimble digital foundation. They’re looking for platforms and tools that can thrive amid uncertainty and flex to meet evolving demands.

Now, my team and I know most of these needs can be met by embracing multi-cloud solutions, which have customer choice and flexibility baked into their architecture. But we also know the process of implementing multi-cloud comes with its own complexity. It’s a major commitment, one that requires time, skills, and resources over the long-term. In the face of that marathon, the lure of half-measures can be strong.

In this environment, my team’s job becomes two-fold: creating a vision for the future that is compelling enough to inspire action, while also charting a realistic path to get there that feels manageable. How do we do it? The same way I eventually ran my marathon.

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Learn to Love the Process

As soon as I signed up for my race, I knew I needed to make a plan. Training isn’t something you can procrastinate on. It requires consistent effort over the long-term. So, I started mapping out what the next few months would look like: the weekly mileage I would need to hit, the time it would take, the days I would run.

Broken up into smaller pieces, the impossible starts to become possible. That’s why creating a process is so important to the success of any digital transformation. When my team starts working with a customer, we spend a lot of time upfront thinking about the business outcomes they’re trying to achieve and the most efficient way of getting there. We’re also constantly looking for ways to improve our own processes so that it’s easy for our clients to onboard, find information and best practices, and get value from our services as soon as possible.

Focus on Short-term Wins

Training for a marathon is a marathon in itself — one that can feel overwhelming when you’re just starting out. That’s why I didn’t think about running 26.2 miles at first. Instead, I focused on hitting better times in my hill and speed work. I pushed to run one mile faster than the week before.

Small wins have a way of boosting your confidence and keeping you motivated over the long-term. That’s why my team and I often work with our customers to identify what workloads make the most sense to move to the cloud and in what order. By executing on specific use cases that create big value early on, we can build momentum for the larger-scale transformation we’re working towards. These customer wins also have the added benefit of keeping our own team motivated because we can see just how much our work moves the needle.

When I think back to my marathon training, one factor above all others contributed to my success: I wasn’t doing it alone. I was part of a running club that helped me keep showing up, even on the bad days. I once took a bad fall during one of my long runs, and I probably would have packed it in for the day if I’d been on my own. But my team was with me, and they inspired me to keep going. I ended up running another 10 miles.

When you’re surrounded by people you trust, just about anything is possible. I remind my team about this all the time. We’re there to be partners to our customers in their digital transformation journeys, as well as partners for each other as we do it. This is especially important when the unexpected occurs. Setbacks are inevitable when you’re trying to do big things. But they don’t have to derail progress toward bigger goals — a fact that’s a lot easier to focus on when you’re surrounded by a team that’s as invested in your success as you are.

When the day finally came and I completed my marathon, it was exhilarating. I couldn’t believe what I had achieved and how far I’d come. That’s the feeling I wish for every one of VMware’s customers when they work with us to. And my team and I are committed to delivering it.

Setbacks don’t have to derail progress — a fact that’s easier to focus on when you’re surrounded by a team that’s as invested in your success as you are.

From Vision to Reality: Charting a Path to Tomorrow’s Success - VMware

VMware today announced that Chip Childers has joined the company as vice president and Chief Open Source Officer.

“We’re delighted that Chip has joined VMware,” said Chris Wolf, VMware’s Chief Research and Innovation Officer. “The upstream and community work, as well as the outstanding compliance efforts from our Open Source Program Office, are critical to the success of our customers, the communities we work with and VMware.”

“I am extraordinarily happy to be joining VMware because of its strategic and high profile embrace of open source and its clear grasp of the importance of building inclusive cultures,” Childers said. “Both are positive-sum approaches to growing a great business. When an organisation such as VMware embraces positive-sum thinking, it improves outcomes for customers, partners, employees, the broader industry and the company itself.”

Childers brings more than 20 years of experience in enterprise infrastructure and cloud computing. Most recently, he was at Puppet Labs, where he served as Chief Architect and led their innovation program, incubated multiple new products, and aligned their open source strategy to evolving business needs.

Previously, Childers co-founded the Cloud Foundry Foundation and served as its Chief Technology Officer and Executive Director. While at the Cloud Foundry Foundation, he transformed the organisation from an independent nonprofit to a directed fund within the Linux Foundation. VMware is a platinum member of both the Cloud Foundry Foundation and the Linux Foundation.

VMware announced that Chip Childers has joined the company as vice president and Chief Open Source Officer.

VMware announces that Chip Childers has joined the company as vice president and Chief Open Source Officer.

Chip Childers joins VMware as Chief Open Source Officer. - VMware News &amp; Stories - ANZ

“It’s so hard … can we skip to the good part?”

You’ve probably heard this lyric from <a href="https://youtu.be/hqrWXNMTaKY">AJR</a> on TikTok at some point over the past few months. It’s the soundtrack to countless clips that all follow the same pattern — someone starts out with one thing, then effortlessly segues into another. From pregnancy tests that turn into babies to outdated bathrooms that turn into modern spas, the <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/skiptothegoodpart">#skiptothegoodpart</a> tag has racked up more than 140 million views … and counting.

What’s behind the popularity of this trend? A lot more than just a catchy song. It gets at a fundamental truth about how most people feel about change. We like the idea of transformation and the better, brighter outcomes it can create. But the process and work of actually getting there? Not so much.

It makes sense. The prospect of change is designed to make us feel uncomfortable and on edge. Chalk it up to instinct — the result of ancestors who constantly scanned their surroundings for any sign of movement that might threaten their survival.

But like it or not, doing the work of change is a constant — in life and in business. So, how can we get more comfortable with it?

I spend a lot of time thinking about this as part of my work at VMware — because in many ways, our business is change. We help drive digital transformation for our customers, particularly in their push to the cloud. But this is a major transition that a lot of organisations struggle with.

We’ve heard the same story, time and time again. Cloud migrations take too long and are too complex. They demand not just technical changes, but process and support changes that require significant leadership buy-in over the long-term. And the pressure to get it right — right now — is tremendous. The pandemic not only turned five-year plans into one-year plans, but fundamentally changed expectations about how quickly an organisation should be able to pivot in the digital space. It’s no wonder our customers want to skip to the good part.

While we can’t make the process of change quite as easy as TikTok creators make it look, figuring out how digital transformation can be simpler and faster for our customers is a huge priority for VMware. We know it’s not enough to just create great products — we also have to deliver the business outcomes our customers need, on the timelines they want, with the resources they have.

The only way to succeed at doing this is by getting comfortable with change ourselves. We have to constantly push ourselves to innovate and evolve so that we can stay one step ahead of our customers’ needs.

This dual push for change — transforming ourselves so that we can help our customers transform — is a unique challenge. It’s a bit like trying to change a tire while you’re cruising down the highway. And the desire to solve it is what drew me to VMware a little more than a year ago.

I’ve always been drawn to the change process and the opportunity to create, rather than just sustain. And as a leader, it’s my responsibility to help get my team excited about it too — not only for ourselves, but for our customers. So over the next few months, I’ll be sharing my best tips for navigating the terror — and thrill — of transformational change.

Until then … what change would you love to skip to the good part of?

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We like the idea of transformational change and the better, brighter outcomes it can create. But the process of getting there? Not so much.

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Back when I was a girl on a hill outside of Johannesburg, dreaming of sucking up the world’s pollution with a <a href="https://news.vmware.com/esg/2030-esg-agenda">giant vacuum</a>, I never imagined I would one day climb another hill—in a gondola, no less—with heads of state, billionaires, and even a few members of royalty. But at the World Economic Forum (WEF), held in the Swiss village of Davos, moments like this are the norm.

I was invited to the Annual Meeting of the Forum to share a business perspective on the role <a href="https://news.vmware.com/esg/vmwares-journey-to-net-zero-and-you">nature-based solutions</a> play in strategies to achieve net-zero, like VMware’s <a href="https://www.vmware.com/content/microsites/en/global-impact.html">2030 Agenda</a>. And our team had a packed agenda. We were there to speak with global leaders about sustainability and the twin transitions happening in energy and digitalization, listen to policy concerns about digital and enterprise sovereignty and share our perspectives on the importance of a secure, interoperable and sustainable multi-cloud platform.

But as a first-time WEF participant, I didn’t fully know what to expect. Davos certainly attracts some of the world’s richest and most powerful people, leading to a fair amount of critique of the event’s ratio of discussion to action.<a href="#_ftn1" id="_ftnref1">[1]</a> Would the first WEF gathering since the beginning of the pandemic be more of the empty promises Greta Thunberg called out previously?<a href="#_ftn2" id="_ftnref2">[2]</a> Or could the current zeitgeist engender dialogue that leads to real solutions?

In my view, the answer is probably a bit of both.

A somber tone for the event was set by bookending addresses from <a href="https://www.weforum.org/events/world-economic-forum-annual-meeting-2022/sessions/special-address-by-volodymyr-zelenskyy-president-of-ukraine-8fb26bbcb1">Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky</a> and German Chancellor Schultz. While sobering, I still found optimism in the conversations. Yes, I heard ambitious promises and some action plans that seemed fuzzier than others. And yes, the parade of luxurious black “internal combustion engines” pulling up—mere steps from the Congress Centre—for meetings to discuss the urgency of net-zero efforts was not lost on me.

Digesting some of the contradictions, here’s the reality that I kept reminding myself of: we don’t have the luxury of using purity tests to discount discussions as important as addressing climate change, inequality and food security. These complex, interconnected and global issues need every nation, every industry and every business leader at the table and engaged. And the World Economic Forum absolutely succeeds at assembling many of the stakeholders who are in positions to move the needle.

Something that surprised me was the breadth and nuance of the discussions. There were very few “single-issue” conversations. Instead, there was a consistent thread of interconnected dialogues like energy, agriculture, health, digital transformation, cyber resilience and social justice, along with impacts of changing global structures and multilateralism.

For example, the war in Ukraine was obviously top of mind for every attendee. But I was struck by how many speakers drew a clear connection between the war and countries’ dependence on fossil fuels. Accelerating the transition to clean energy was presented as not only a way to achieve better environmental outcomes, but as a way to create more resilience and better foreign policy outcomes.

This search for win-win solutions defined many of my conversations at Davos. While there was a clear recognition that a better future will demand certain tradeoffs, there was also a wariness of polarization and the idea that we’re playing a zero-sum game. Put simply, it’s not a matter of investing in climate or energy, health or digitization. The world needs to invest in climate and energy and health and digitization—and when we do, the sum will be greater than the parts and we’ll all benefit.

By the end of my week in Davos, many connections were made, many conversations were had,  and I was witness to many commitments announced.<a href="#_ftn3" id="_ftnref3">[3]</a> Will this lead to measurable outcomes? It’s too soon to know for sure. The months and years ahead will reveal the actions behind the good intentions.

But my final impression from the World Economic Forum was one of hope.

After riding that gondola up to the ski chalet where the closing event was being held, I found myself among many of the “Davos elite” I’d brushed shoulders with the whole week —and I still felt a bit out of place. But then I spotted a table of young people—the Global Shapers,<a href="#_ftn4" id="_ftnref4">[4]</a> a group of amazing leaders under 30 who were invited to Davos to share and evolve their ideas for a better future. I recognized a few of them. They had been the first in line after my own session earlier in the week, eager to talk about how innovations like ML and LiDAR could support carbon auditing and verification for companies like VMware who have made commitments to planting <a href="https://news.vmware.com/esg/vmwares-journey-to-net-zero-and-you">trees</a> as part of our commitments. So, I approached their table—and they were kind enough to welcome me with open arms to join their table.

We immediately launched into a spirited discussion, and I got to hear more about their passions and projects. For instance, I learned about a project to regenerate and reforest the Sahel, an area stretching coast-to-coast from Senegal to Djibouti. But beyond the specifics of any one conversation, what struck me most about these Global Shapers was their clarity of purpose and optimism. It wasn’t a matter of if they would achieve their goals—but when. And that attitude was contagious.

That’s when I realized that this might be one of the most important parts of the World Economic Forum. It’s a convening that allows people and ideas to reconnect with the power of possibility. To remember that big things are achievable. To recharge our batteries for the journey ahead.

This article may contain hyperlinks to non-VMware websites that are created and maintained by third parties who are solely responsible for the content on such websites.

<a href="#_ftnref1" id="_ftn1">[1]</a> NPR, “Is Davos As Bad As Critics Say? Global Leaders Weigh In,” January 2020.

<a href="#_ftnref2" id="_ftn2">[2]</a> The Washington Post, “Greta Thunberg Says World Leaders’ Talk on Climate Change is ‘Blah Blah Blah’,” September 2021.

<a href="#_ftnref3" id="_ftn3">[3]</a> Fortune, “Davos 2022 Had Some Moments of Real Importance,” May 2022.

<a href="#_ftnref4" id="_ftn4">[4]</a> World Economic Forum, “Global Shapers,” 2011.

The World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2022 Davos allowed us to reconnect, remember and recharge for the journey ahead.

A Davos spring: VMware's Nicola Acutt shares impressions from the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting.

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The @wef annual meeting allowed us to reconnect with possibilities, remember big things are achievable and recharge for the #ESG journey ahead. Read more from @VMware @NicolaAcutt. #wef22 #sustainability #VMware2030

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