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Achieving the Net Effect D To launch Network Appliance into the Fortune 500, its CEO, Dan Warmenhoven, says he'll need a focused strategy, innovative products, and the best talent his company can hire. by Tricia Bisoux an Warmenhoven knows that advances in data storage may not be as sexy as, say, the recent release of the iPhone. He knows he'll never see people queu- ing up overnight to buy an enterprise storage system. But he also knows that, as technology advances, the digital avalanche of data will continue to build momentum. Companies will need more and better storage technologies to man- age, archive, and access their growing cache of data as efficiently as possible. As the CEO of Network Appliance (NetApp), a data storage provider based in Sunnyvale, California, Warmenhoven wants his company to deliver to business the most robust storage solutions available. So far, that vision has helped him to transform a small company into a tech-sector powerhouse in a relatively short span of time. He came to NetApp in 1994, just before it became a public company in 1995. At the time, it had 100 employees and $14.8 million in revenue. Fast forward 12 years: It now boasts more than 6,600 employees in 113 countries and annual revenue of $2.8 billion. Warmenhoven knew he wanted to be a CEO at just 17. "My father was an executive at General Foods, but he wasn't the CEO," he says. "Business seemed like a good career path, but I decided that being a middle manager isn't as good as being the boss!" Follow- ing his love of computer science, Warmenhoven earned an electrical engineering degree with a computer science specialty from Princeton University in New Jersey. He assumed senior management positions at HP and IBM, and he served as CEO of the telecommunica- tions company Network Equipment Technologies from November 1989 to January 1994. In 2001, BusinessWeek named Warmenhoven among its Top 25 Managers of the year. In 2004, he was presented with the National Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award; and in 2006, Network World named him one of the 50 Most Powerful People in Networking. Even so, he still maintains a low profile in the business world, inspiring BusinessWeek to call him "one of the most respected tech CEOs you've never heard of," in its December 27, 2005, issue. Although he never earned his MBA, Warmenhoven has actively pursued his own busi- ness education, taking executive education courses at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He now shares what he has learned with the next generation of business leaders as a guest lecturer on entrepreneurship at Stanford University's Graduate School of Busi- ness in California. Warmenhoven also is an active advisory board member at Santa Clara University's Leavey School of Business in California, engaging in regular "fireside chats" with the school's new EMBAs and participating in the school's leadership lecture series. As a teenager, Warmenhoven always thought he'd become the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. That hasn't happened yet, but it's still his goal. He may simply achieve it in a different way than he once envisioned. Instead of working his way up an existing ladder, he's building a new one: Over the last 12 years, Network Appliance has risen to No. 838 in the Fortune 1000. "If we build to $4.5 billion in sales over the next couple years," he says, "we'll be in the Fortune 500." His advice for future business leaders? Do what you love, and choose your people well and wisely. Great people, he emphasizes, will help any leader achieve great things. 16 BizEd SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007