MinIO Inc. announced that two new advisors have joined the team, both of whom are also investors in MinIO, as well as additions to its go-to-market team.

Sanjay Poonen, a technology executive with more than 25 years of experience leading enterprise software companies, such as VMWare, SAP, and Informatica, has joined the company as an advisor. This announcement follows on the heels of MinIO's Series B funding announcement last month, in which Poonen was an investor.

Sanjay Poonen will provide counsel on growth and go-to-market (GTM) strategy as MinIO continues its work to deliver the world's best multi-cloud data storage software across any cloud, be it public, private, colocation or at the edge.

"As enterprises adopt multi-cloud as the primary architecture, you need consistency across infrastructure, operations and developer experiences - from the edge to the core," said Poonen. "MinIO has delivered breakthrough storage software for the multi-cloud. I am thrilled to support their groundbreaking work and remarkable growth as both an advisor and an investor."

Tony Werner, a Senior Advisor to Comcast and former President, Technology, Product, Xperience of Comcast Cable also joined MinIO as an advisor and investor. Werner's technology leadership at Comcast redefined the pace of innovation in the cable industry resulting in a Lifetime Achievement Emmy Award in honor of his distinguished career as a technologist, innovator and leader.

Prior to Comcast, Werner served as Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for Liberty Global, Inc., where he led the company's global strategy for video, voice and data services. He has more than 40 years of engineering and technical management experience, having also held senior management positions with Qwest Communications, Aurora Networks, TeleCommunications, Inc. (TCI)/AT&T Broadband, Rogers Communications, Inc., and RCA Cablevision Systems.

"Modern data stores serve as a foundational component of every enterprise transformation," said Werner. "MinIO's object storage suite combines performance, RESTful APIs, scale and operational simplicity in ways that make it the default choice for Kubernetes-native object stores. I am delighted to advise them on their media, cable and telecommunications strategy."

"We are fortunate to have attracted such remarkable leadership to join MinIO on its journey," said AB Periasamy, co-founder and CEO of MinIO. "Sanjay and Tony are among the most respected technologists in their fields and their guidance and experience are invaluable additions to our team."

Complementing these advisors are several key go-to-market appointments and promotions - further strengthening MinIO's commercial engine.

Effective immediately, MinIO has promoted Kris Inapurapu to Chief Business Officer. This role encompasses all things commercial, from customer engagement, renewal and growth as well as strategic partnerships. Kris previously served as the Vice President of Corporate and Business Development at MinIO. Prior to that role, Kris was in senior business development roles at KX Systems, ARM and OpenText. He also worked as an investment banker at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in the technology practice.

MinIO has also added three new senior technologists to the team to support the company's growing commercial traction.

Prior to joining MinIO, Moiz Kohari was previously Senior Vice President and Global Chief Technology Architect at State Street where he focused on transforming the bank's enterprise architecture. Kohari also served as EVP/Head of Global Technology Innovation for the London Stock Exchange Group. Earlier in his career, Moiz was the CTO of Novell. Most recently, he was the co-Founder and CEO of Manetu.

Satish Ramakrishnan comes to MinIO from Ahana where he was the Vice President of Engineering. Previously, Ramakrishnan was the Executive Vice President of Engineering at Reltio, running engineering and technical operations. Prior to Reltio, Ramakrishnan was the Vice President of Technology Outreach at CableLabs and the Chief Innovation Officer for the Upramp Initiative. He has also held vice president positions at startups like RiseSmart, PointCast, CoreObjects, Kaybus, and large enterprises like BEA and Comcast, where he was Vice President of Technology Development. During his tenure at Comcast, Ramakrishnan founded the Silicon Valley Innovation Lab.

Brian Costa comes to MinIO from Fidelity Investments where he was the Vice President of Solutions Architecture. In that role, Costa consulted with the business units to define artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) and A/B hypothesis testing solutions with the goal of driving engagement and increasing revenue. Previously, Costa held ML and AI roles at Manetu, State Street and Progress. Costa was also a founder at several startups, including Power Control Solutions and BuySideFX.

"As commercial interest in MinIO accelerates and our customers expand their use cases and capacity we saw the opportunity to engage at a senior technologist level," said Garima Kapoor, co-founder and COO of MinIO. "With Kris, Moiz, Satish and Brian joining our team, we have proven talent across the fields of cloud, analytics, AI/ML and data. This team allows us to meet our customers at a technical level with experienced senior advisors - ensuring their production success."