Featured Speakers
Manoj Sharma
Manoj Sharma is the Product Management Leader for VMware-as-a-Service in Google Cloud. Manoj was formerly the VP of Products at CloudSimple, which was acquired in November 2019 by Google. Prior to that, he has been in Product Management leadership roles at VMware and Cisco. Manoj has 20+ years of industry experience in a broad range of technology areas, including cloud architectures, virtualization, storage systems, enterprise and cloud networking, business continuity (backup/DR), smart operations management, as well as analytics/ML/AI applications. He is an Alumni of the Wharton School of Business (MBA), the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay and the University of Maryland, College Park.
Robert Castruita
Robert Castruita has over 15 years of IT work experience, including extensive experience in a large enterprise network and systems design implementation for maintaining critical world-wide communications systems. Robert has had a colorful career supporting the Creative Artists Agency, Dell Inc., Booz Allen Hamilton, and most recently VMware. His overall architectural expertise translated directly into client success through the development of engineering and design implementation. He has managed and spearheaded efforts in the planning and development of Cloud IT architecture and network-based designs. Furthermore, Robert has 8+ years of private sector experience, specifically within design and operations including technical expertise within enterprise hardware physical/virtual server platforms such as VMware, Windows Server 2008 / 2012, Remote Desktop Protocol, Terminal Servers, and network connectivity. His previous employment consisted of a role in Sr. Virtualization management and troubleshooting at Dell Inc., his role entailed the maintenance and proof of concept of both a client’s physical and virtual servers’ storage platforms. Robert currently possess an MCSA Server 2012, VCP, F5 Administration and Security+ certification. Robert holds a Bachelor’s Degree from Cal State Long Beach and Multi-Cloud Certifications.
Sai Gopalan
Sai Gopalan is a Product Manager with the Google Cloud Compute team. Having recently joined Google, Sai comes from VMware where he spent over 7 years working on and launching flagship releases of vSphere and VMware Cloud in their Product Marketing team. He has also spent several years working in technology consulting with Accenture and McKinsey. He holds a Masters in Business Administration from University of Michigan and a Bachelors in Computer Engineering from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
Simon Long
Simon Long (2x VCDX) is a VMware Engineer working for Google Cloud, focusing on their Google Cloud VMware Engine service. Simon recently joined Google after a long 11 year tenure at VMware where he had multiple roles, the latest being a Multi-Cloud Architect. He spent time as an enterprise-level architect in VMware's Professional Services and was also the lead architect and service owner for VMware's Internal Horizon deployments. In a career spanning 20+ years, Simon has worked in a wide range of IT environments ranging from cloud service providers, software vendors and startups.
Nargis Sakhibova
Nargis is a Product Manager on Google Cloud VMware Engine. Prior to Google, Nargis was at Adobe, where she focused on working with enterprise customers, building one of the Adobe Experience Cloud products. Nargis earned her MBA degree from MIT and bachelor's degree in Economics and Psychology from Williams College.
Nick Cassimatis
Nick Cassimatis is a member of the Google Cloud VMware Engine Center of Excellence Team. He has over 25 years experience in the IT industry, including Pre- and Post-Sales roles across Help Desk, Backup/Recovery-Disaster Recovery, Primary and Secondary Storage, Cloud Storage and the many overlapping areas. He has been with some of the biggest players in the IT industry (IBM, EMC, Dell) and has experience in the startup space as well (Data Domain, Druva, CloudSimple).
Albert Colas Prunera
Albert Colas Prunera is a Networking Specialist in Google Cloud. He covers the entire Networking portfolio and works closely with the Product and Engineering teams to develop products and solutions. Albert is the go-to person for any GCVE networking topics that requires deep expertise in GCP Networking. Albert has 15+ years of industry experience in a broad range of technology areas and has worked in companies such as Cisco and HPE Aruba, where he joined after 2.5 years where he had multiple roles, the latest being a Distinguished Engineer.