Founding Heroes

Royal Convent of Mafra, Portugal

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Charles Fan:

Expert in Cloud Data Management and Distributed Systems

Charles Fan

Senior Vice President, Strategic R&D, VMware

Charles Fan is the Senior Vice President of Strategic R&D at VMware, where he leads efforts to analyze fundamental shifts in technology and customer needs, exploring how disruptive changes impact data management methodologies in the cloud.

Professional Contributions

Charles has been at the forefront of innovation in cloud and data management technologies. His notable achievements include:

• Founding and leading the VMware China R&D Center and the EMC China Center of Excellence, both of which have grown to employ over 1,500 engineers and are regarded as premier R&D groups in China

• Co-founding and serving as CTO of Rainfinity, where he spearheaded the development of industry-leading file virtualization and high availability products. Rainfinity was acquired by EMC in 2005

Earlier in his career, Charles held roles at Intel Corporation, Goldman Sachs, and Cheyenne Software, gaining broad expertise in distributed systems and network storage technologies.

Academic Background

Charles holds a Ph.D. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), as well as a Bachelor of Engineering (B.E.) in Electrical Engineering.