Western Digital (Nasdaq: WDC) announced today that it has hired Ahmed Shihab as Chief Product Officer. Shihab, a seasoned expert in cloud storage needs and requirements, most recently served as Corporate Vice President of Azure Storage at Microsoft. In this role, he led the engineering and operations teams for Object and Block storage, driving the design and development of Microsoft's cloud storage solutions. As Western Digital’s new Chief Product Officer, Shihab is responsible for leading product strategy and engineering as the company accelerates innovation and development of HDD products and solutions.

“Ahmed joins Western Digital at a pivotal time for the HDD industry with data generation, AI adoption, and the demand for scalable storage continuing to grow. His expertise will be instrumental in driving innovation and meeting the industry's evolving needs,” said Irving Tan, CEO of Western Digital. “Given his tenure with storage and infrastructure design and development, Ahmed is the right leader to move Western Digital forward as we help our customers unleash the power and value of data.”

With nearly 30 years of experience across product design and business leadership, Shihab has consistently delivered on the needs of the business and customers through developing a culture of quality and agile execution. Prior to his tenure at Microsoft Azure Storage, Ahmed was Vice President, Infrastructure Hardware at AWS, where he led innovation and the building and operations of AWS's compute and storage fleet. He also served as Vice President and Chief Architect of File Systems Group at NetApp and spent more than eight years at Xyratex, a cloud infrastructure company. Shihab holds a Bachelor of Engineering in Electronic Engineering from the University of Southampton in England.

“Hyperscalers, cloud service providers, and OEMs are looking to Western Digital to provide them with the most cutting-edge HDD technology to grow their businesses,” said Tan. “With Ahmed’s leadership, our customers can expect even more from Western Digital’s legacy of creating innovative and reliable storage solutions at scale today and well into the future.”

About Western Digital

Western Digital empowers the systems and people who rely on data. Consistently delivering massive capacity, high quality and low TCO, Western Digital is trusted by hyperscale cloud providers, enterprise data centers, content professionals and consumers around the world. Core to its values, the company recognizes the urgency to combat climate change and is on a mission to design storage technologies that not only meet today’s data demands but also contribute to a more climate-conscious future. Follow Western Digital on LinkedIn and learn more at http://www.westerndigital.com/.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of federal securities laws, including statements regarding expectations for: the HDD industry, including demand and storage trends. These forward-looking statements are based on management’s current expectations and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements. Key risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements include: volatility in global economic conditions and demand for the company’s products; inflation; increase in interest rates and economic recession; future responses to and effects of global health crises; the impact of business and market conditions; the outcome and impact of the separation of the company’s HDD and Flash businesses, including with respect to customer and supplier relationships, regulatory and contractual restrictions, stock price volatility and the diversion of management’s attention from ongoing business operations and opportunities; the impact of competitive products and pricing; the company’s development and introduction of products based on new technologies and expansion into new data storage markets; risks associated with cost saving initiatives, restructurings, acquisitions, divestitures, mergers, joint ventures and the company’s strategic relationships; difficulties or delays in manufacturing or other supply chain disruptions; hiring and retention of key employees; the company’s level of debt and other financial obligations; changes to the company’s relationships with key customers; compromise, damage or interruption from cybersecurity incidents or other data system security risks; actions by competitors; the company’s ability to achieve its GHG emissions reduction and other ESG goals; the impact of international conflicts; risks associated with compliance with changing legal and regulatory requirements and the outcome of legal proceedings; and other risks and uncertainties listed in the company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”), including the company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC on August 20, 2024 to which your attention is directed. You should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof, and the company undertakes no obligation to update or revise these forward-looking statements to reflect new information or events, except as required by law.

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"Ahmed joins Western Digital at a pivotal time for the HDD industry with data generation, AI adoption, and the demand for scalable storage continuing to grow," said Irving Tan, CEO of Western Digital.