Ann Arbor, MI · September 22, 2026
New CEO will accelerate VergeIO’s mission to collapse the fragmented data center stack onto a single operating system — delivering the Simplicity, Savings, and Service companies need as AI reshapes infrastructure demand
VergeIO, maker of the VergeOS private cloud operating system, today announced the appointment of Parag Patel as Chief Executive Officer, effective September 8, 2026. Mr. Patel succeeds Yan Ness, who will remain on the Board, as the company enters its next phase of growth.
cloud infrastructure and AI
Chief Executive Officer
by one operating system
for customers leaving VMware
Key Takeaways
- Parag Patel is VergeIO’s Chief Executive Officer, effective September 8, 2026. He succeeds Yan Ness, who remains on the Board.
- Patel brings more than 30 years in data center, cloud infrastructure and AI, including half his career at VMware and leadership roles at C3.ai and Forcepoint.
- VergeOS unifies virtualization, storage, data protection, networking and automation in a single piece of software running on standard hardware.
- Customers moving off VMware have used VergeOS to cut infrastructure costs by as much as 70 percent.
- Simplicity, Savings and Service anchor the company’s mission as AI reshapes infrastructure demand.
The harder problem is the infrastructure teams already run
The appointment comes at a pivotal moment for enterprise infrastructure. Trillions of dollars are being committed to data center capacity worldwide as organizations race to build for AI — but for most IT teams, the more immediate problem isn’t a shortage of GPUs, it’s the accumulated weight of the infrastructure they already run. Two decades of bolting together separate products for virtualization, storage, data protection, networking, and automation have left most data centers as a patchwork of licenses, vendors, and integration points. For the typical mid-market company with limited staff and resources, this is expensive to operate and difficult to adapt to whatever comes next, AI included.
Parag Patel, Chief Executive Officer
Parag Patel brings over 30 years of experience in Data center, Cloud Infrastructure and AI to VergeIO. Half of his professional career was spent at VMware, where he joined a company of roughly 500 people and helped build it into a global infrastructure standard. He has also held pivotal leadership roles at C3.ai and Forcepoint.
“Parag joins VergeIO at exactly the moment when what we’ve built stops being an alternative to what came before and starts being the answer to what comes next. We looked for three things: deep domain expertise, a record of success at companies at our stage, and a leader who fits the culture we built on purpose. Parag has all three. VergeIO has the product, the customers, and the momentum, and I feel really good about handing him the keys.”
Yan NessBoard Member and former CEO, VergeIO“We are in the midst of a breathtaking data center renaissance. Every company rebuilding its data center for the AI era is discovering the same thing: you can’t bolt AI-readiness onto an infrastructure stack that’s already complicated. VergeOS’s whole premise is that simplicity, savings, and service aren’t trade-offs against capability — they’re what makes a company ready for what’s coming. We are building the software substrate that will enable this transformation.”
Parag PatelChief Executive Officer, VergeIOA unified operating system underneath the stack
VergeOS was built on a different premise: that the data center doesn’t need another point product layered on top of the stack — it needs a unified operating system underneath it. VergeOS unifies virtualization, storage, data protection, networking, and automation into a single piece of software running on standard hardware, replacing what typically takes five separate vendors with one. Customers moving off VMware have used it to cut infrastructure costs by as much as 70 percent, but the company’s ambition extends well beyond hypervisor replacement: VergeOS is designed as the foundation layer that lets companies and MSPs run today’s workloads and tomorrow’s AI applications without re-platforming every time the industry moves.
Beyond the Hypervisor Swap: A Deep Dive into the VergeOS Architecture
Recorded June 11, 2026Kit Colbert, VMware’s former CTO and now a VergeIO board advisor, joins VergeIO founder Greg Campbell for a conversation between two infrastructure software architects. Watch why a unified code base solves problems a hypervisor swap leaves in place.
Watch On DemandAbout VergeIO
VergeIO delivers VergeOS, a private cloud operating system that consolidates virtualization, storage, data protection, networking, and automation into a single software layer running on standard hardware. Rather than another point product to manage, VergeOS replaces the fragmented, multi-vendor data center stack outright — giving IT teams one platform, one license, and one interface to run their infrastructure today and extend it for AI tomorrow. Organizations use VergeOS to reduce combined capital and operating costs by up to 70 percent while eliminating the compounding complexity that comes from stitching together separate virtualization, storage, and networking products. VergeIO is headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Learn more at www.verge.io.
Media Contact
George Crump
Chief Marketing Officer, VergeIO
[email protected]
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