Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) appointed Keith Moran as its new VP for storage and data services for North America.

Moran was previously VP of the Americas for data platform firm Weka, and brings additional storage experience from a stint at SimpliVity, the HPE acquisition from 2017 which bolstered HPE’s storage and data services. Moran replaces Adnan Bhutta in the role, who now leads worldwide hybrid cloud ops software sales for HPE.

The appointment comes after HPE enhanced its AI-optimized storage offerings in partnership with Nvidia. These included the Alletra Storage MP X10000 data system, with updates allowing users to create AI-ready object data with new automated, inline metadata tagging, potentially accelerating ingestion by downstream AI applications.

With its Nvidia collaboration, HPE said it expected to further accelerate the performance of the Alletra offering by providing a direct data path for remote direct memory access (RDMA) transfers between GPU memory, system memory, and the X10000.

HPE's hire ensures storage is not forgotten amid its AI-centric revamp, which has also included Blackwell-infused servers, agentic intelligence for GreenLake and Aruba, and AI updates for HPE Private Cloud.

The overhaul comes in the wake of HPE acquiring Juniper Networks for $14 billion in a push to bolster its AI and networking portfolio. Juniper itself rolled out a number of AI networking updates in August through its Mist and Marvis offerings.

More on Moran

Keith Moran joins HPE after almost two and a half years at Weka, where he won an award from the firm for his sales efforts last year.

Previously Moran worked at Nutanix, where he started as a regional sales director in 2014. In 2016, the exec became VP for Nutanix’s central U.S. operations before helming as SVP for the entire Americas region in 2020.

Prior to Nutanix, Moran served as director for hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) vendor SimpliVity, which HPE bought in 2017. Those HCI services are now offered through HPE’s storage and data services that fall under Moran's new remit.

The VP’s career began in 1999, joining AT&T as a data network account executive. In 2003 he served as an account exec for data and storage firm EMC, later of Dell Technologies.

In 2006 he would go on to embellish his data storage experience with an almost seven-year stint as district manager for NetApp.

Moran’s VP appointment is the latest high-profile hire from HPE, having this summer appointed Juniper Networks' SVP of sales Gordon Mackintosh to lead its channel and partner networking sales.