Zia Yusuf, VMware

Zia Yusuf joined VMware in 2021 as VMware’s Senior Vice President of Strategic Ecosystem and Industry Solutions, responsible for building joint horizontal and industry-centric solutions with our ecosystem and alliances across Dell, global cloud providers (hyperscalers), global system integrators, and global ISVs.

Prior to VMware, Zia was a Senior Partner & Managing Director at Boston Consulting Group (BCG)—serving as a core member of the firm’s Technology Advantage, and Technology, Media & Telecommunications practices. At BCG, Zia worked with a wide range of technology clients on issues related to software, technology strategy, and the resulting go-to-market approach including pricing, ecosystem strategy, and digital transformation to drive growth. He also led the effort to establish the Silicon Valley office for BCG and was the global IoT lead for the firm.

Before BCG, Zia was CEO of a leading IoT startup called Streetline, and an executive vice president at SAP where he served as head of the global ecosystem and partner group managing a network of 7,500 partners, SAP’s award-winning online communities of innovation, and the $125 million SAP NetWeaver Fund. He also founded and led the SAP Corporate Strategy and Design Services team and has served as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs and an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Sutter Hill Ventures & Norwest Venture Partners. Zia started his career at the World Bank Group working on health care projects in Southern Africa and project finance projects in South and East Asia.

Zia has also served as an associate consulting professor at Stanford University’s Design “D” School where he taught classes on user-centric design and design thinking for large organizations to accelerate innovation. Zia has a passion to enable education for all and has served on several non-profit boards on the topic, including currently serving on the board for the Silicon Valley Education Foundation.

Zia holds a Bachelor of Arts from Macalester College, a Master of Science in International Affairs from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.