Friday's Last Word: Avere Systems CEO Ron Bianchini

Friday's Last Word: Avere Systems CEO Ron Bianchini — Who exactly is he?

Avere Systems CEO Ron Bianchini co-founded the Pittsburgh-based network-attached storage (NAS) optimization solutions provider in 2008. Before Avere, he was senior vice president at NetApp (NTAP), where he led the NetApp Pittsburgh Technology Center. Prior to NetApp, he was CEO and co-founder of Spinnaker Networks. Previously, Bianchini served as vice president of product architecture of FORE Systems. He co-founded Scalable Networks before it was acquired by FORE.

What are his plans for Avere Systems?

"My first two companies, Scalable Networks and Spinnaker Networks, I sold rather quickly (the first after six months, and the second after two years)," he says. "Avere is my third company, and one I intend to continue to grow standalone. In 2015, we plan to double down on our expansion into the cloud — we've recently announced support for Google Cloud Platform this year, following our partnership with AWS late last year."

Who does Bianchini challenge to sit in the hot seat?

John Morris, CEO of Cleversafe.

What is "Friday's Last Word"?

Friday's Last Word welcomes cloud-centric CEOs who are willing to speak with Talkin' Cloud without someone peeking over a shoulder. Click on each photo to learn more about the CEO you're viewing — it's that simple.

Think you can handle sitting in the hot seat? Send an email to Talkin' Cloud Senior Editor CJ Arlotta at cj.arlotta [at] penton.com for further information. If he doesn't get back to you right away, bother him some more — and more.

Follow CJ Arlotta on Twitter @cjarlotta and Google+ for further updates on the story above — or if you just want to say hello.