The Complexity Problem: Gus Shahin on Simplifying the Enterprise for AI

**Gus Shahin** (0:00)
Our objective is not to have a few successful AI pilots. It's really to become an AI powered enterprise, if you will.
So we've gone beyond the experimentation. We have great governance, prioritization, value tracking.

**Peter High** (0:16)
Welcome to Technovation. I'm Peter High, President of Metis Strategy. My guest today is Gus Shahin. For a little less than two years, Gus has been the Executive Vice President of Business Technology and Operations at NetApp, the Intelligent Data Infrastructure Company, helping enterprises manage and optimize data across on-premise and cloud environments. NetApp generated nearly $6.6 billion in revenue in 2025 Gus joined NetApp in 2024 in a newly created executive role reporting directly to CEO, George Kurian, where he leads four major pillars of the company, information technology, operations, global security, and enterprise process excellence. Prior to NetApp, Gus spent 24 years at Flex, serving in several senior leadership positions, including as CIO. Over the course of his career, he's led large-scale digital transformation initiatives, global supply chain modernization efforts, and enterprise technology strategies spanning manufacturing, operations, cybersecurity, and customer enablement. I look forward to hearing from him as to how all those experiences have come together in helping him with the role he currently has. Now for a word from our partner, Celonis. Do you ever feel like you're being told to wave a big magic AI wand and everything will just be better? Sure, AI can write emails, summarize some documents, and even draft a pretty lackluster podcast ad. But what about when it comes to AI taking on your big business opportunities and your big problems? It will tell you that's a great question, then it will scrape the public domain and give you some generic recommendations. That's not too helpful when you've got a spike in demand and you're trying to reroute stock through a bottleneck that just won't unblock. Celonis gives AI the context it needs to know how your unique business runs and how to improve it. It's not a magic wand but it does lead to some pretty enchanting outcomes. AI needs context and Celonis provides it. Learn more about how the context model gives enterprise AI operational clarity at celonis.com/technovation.
That's celonis.com/technovation.
Now on to the interview.
Gus, welcome to Technovation. I should say welcome back to Technovation. Great to speak with you again today.

**Gus Shahin** (2:21)
Thanks, Peter. Great to be here. Appreciate it.

**Peter High** (2:24)
No, it's my great pleasure. Really looking forward to the conversation, Gus. Let's talk about NetApp. I think especially people in the tech world probably have a good deal of familiarity with it, but share a bit of a perspective as to the business you're in and the state of the business now.

**Gus Shahin** (2:38)
Yeah.
As you know and probably most tech folks know, NetApp is one of the primary data storage providers, right? So we're an intelligent data infrastructure company. So we provide storage, all kinds of storage, block, file, object, on-prem and cloud as well. And we've got a pretty strong operating system that manages the storage, which is generally key when you get storage, right? The thing you're looking for is the software that manages it and optimizes it. That's usually the most important thing. And one of the unique features that NetApp has over other storage providers is that same operating system, applies both on-prem and in the cloud. So you can run our storage basically in any of the hyperscalers or on-prem, or have a hybrid set up with one pane of glass to manage it. And that's what we do.

**Peter High** (3:43)
Fascinating. And fascinating also is your role, a newly created one, as I mentioned in the introduction, Gus, you're the Executive Vice President of Business Technology and Operations. Talk a bit about what that encompasses.

**Gus Shahin** (3:54)
Yeah. So the role is really, I have responsibility, as you said, for technology, security, business process transformation, and operations, which really is comprised of three or four different functions, really. Supply chain, procurement, commerce, and operational engineering as well. So, the role was created before I joined, those roles all reported into different EVPs under George. And because they somehow influence each other in one way or another, where technology plays a key role in all of them, you know, George and the team decided to kind of consolidate and put them under one role, which excited me, of course.
And it made a lot more sense for the company. And so, you know, some people see these as separate disciplines, of course, and that's why they had them reporting to different EVPs. But as you know, technology enables process, process drives the operation, data informs decisions, security protects the enterprise, and then AI accelerates all the outcomes. So, it kind of all worked out together and it's a great role. Happy to be here.