Zadara, a leading provider of edge cloud services, has recently made a significant move in the cloud computing space with the appointment of Yoram Novick as its new President and CEO. With over two decades of experience in the cloud industry, Novick brings a wealth of expertise to the role. This announcement comes at a pivotal moment for Zadara, as the company celebrates surpassing 500 cloud customers and reaching EBITDA positive status since 2022. In this exclusive VMblog expert interview article, we sit down with Yoram Novick to discuss his plans for scaling Zadara’s edge cloud network and his vision for the future.
VMblog: Congratulations on your new position as CEO of Zadara. We note that you’ve been in the driver’s seat before as CEO at Topio and Maxta. Can you talk about what’s immediately in store for the company as you take over as CEO?
Yoram Novick: Thank you. I am thrilled to be the CEO of a company like Zadara. It’s an established company with the innovation and agility of a startup. Our edge cloud services are game changing, making the world a smaller place by connecting and powering people’s lives. Zadara has always been able to read the market and we continue to respond with leading edge cloud solutions. We’re doing so many great things for use cases at the edge, and we’re rolling out edge cloud deployments at a swift pace. It’s an exciting time to be the CEO of a company like Zadara and I feel lucky to have become CEO at such a critical time in the company’s growth.
VMblog: We note an interesting change as former CEO Nelson Nahum is now CTO. Can we talk about what prompted the change?
Novick: Nelson reached out to me. We’re old friends and have worked on projects together and led companies at the same time. Somewhere along the line over the course of the past year Nelson decided that in order to accelerate Zadara’s growth and attain the company’s long term strategic goals, it made sense to add new leadership.
And as you noted, Nelson is now Zadara’s CTO and chairman. He’s helping me get up to speed and will continue to serve on with the Zadara executive team and on the Zadara board of directors.
VMblog: Last year, Zadara was quoted as saying Zadara has established 400 edge clouds. Where is Zadara now?
Novick: We have an unfailing belief in Zadara’s technology and use cases. Our momentum continues as we have now surpassed 500+ clouds, in over 24 countries, to over 250 partners. Zadara is leading the democratization of cloud computing, bringing enterprise-grade full stack services, EC2-compatible compute, networking, and storage, while expanding a robust network of managed service providers (MSPs) to every corner of the globe, with locations in the US, Asia, Europe, LATAM, Africa and even at the top of Machu Picchu.
VMblog: What’s the current size of Zadara’s team? Are there any plans to hire and scale the team or operations?
Novick: Zadara currently has about 200 team members. Like most cloud service companies, our team is located wherever we find the best talent. We’re headquartered in Irvine California. We are proud to say we employ people from all over the world. We are continuously evaluating plans to continue to scale the team and its operations.
VMblog: What do you see as your main priority at Zadara for the rest of 2023?
Novick: First, Zadara has been EBITDA positive since 2022. We are expecting to be operationally profitable in 2023. One of my first priorities is to exceed the company profitability goals for 2023. Zadara’s plans are to solidify its position as the Edge Cloud leader in 2023 by deploying and supporting a network of service providers that scale without the need to build new data centers, while offering cloud services anywhere in the world. Bringing a better than public cloud experience, with optimized price, performance, security and compliance to our partners is another priority for 2023. Faster times to innovation and new growth opportunities mean the edge can deliver its promise to the world sooner. We continue to expand our edge cloud services everywhere, the US, EMEA and APAC and Africa, building our momentum with more global points of presence than any other company.
##
About Yoram Novick, President and CEO of Zadara
Yoram Novick is the President and CEO of Zadara. He has deep expertise in enterprise systems, storage and software and a proven track record of over 25 years of building successful startups. He is known as a company founder, CEO, and former board member and advisor to various technology companies such as Topio, Maxta, Storwize, Druva, and Kapow.
Yoram holds 25 patents in the systems, storage, and cloud domains. He holds both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in computer science from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.
