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Western Digital Corp. today announced the appointment of Martin Fink to the position of chief technology officer (CTO). Fink most recently served as CTO and director of HP Labs at Hewlett Packard Enterprise. In his new role, Fink will report to Steve Milligan, chief executive officer, and lead Western Digital’s technology innovation agenda as the company continues to transform its business and expand its capabilities and technology portfolio. Fink succeeds CTO Steven Campbell who will depart the company to pursue other opportunities after a long and distinguished career with Western Digital.

Fink worked in a wide range of business and technology leadership roles during his 30-year career at HP/HPE. Prior to being named CTO and director of HP Labs at HPE in 2012, he was senior vice president and general manager of Business Critical Systems (BCS) for HP’s Enterprise, Storage and Servers (ESS) business unit. He previously led HP’s Open Source and Linux Organization and the NonStop Enterprise Division. Fink is listed as co-inventor on two patents related to online e-commerce and is a graduate of Loyalist College in Ontario, Canada, where he studied electronics engineering. Fink also holds an MBA from Colorado State University.

In 2015, HPE and SanDisk launched a partnership to collaborate on a new technology within the Storage Class Memory (SCM) category. SCM represents a new category of semiconductor memories that are expected to develop a new paradigm of computing solutions targeted at data-rich environments. They offer significant advantages in memory access speed and latency, non-volatility, and cost compared to today’s near memory components. Fink, who was the technology executive who led this effort at HPE, has been a champion of SCM for several years.

“Martin is a respected technologist who will play an important, strategic role in the ongoing growth and transformation of Western Digital,” said Steve Milligan, chief executive officer, Western Digital. “He has been a leading voice on the value and promise of memory-driven computing and will lead our continued innovation focus areas, including the commercialization of Storage Class Memory solutions.”

Steven Campbell was appointed EVP and CTO of Western Digital in November 2015. Campbell previously served as CTO of HGST and Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, following a six-year tenure in Singapore as CEO of Magnecomp. He has been a key part of the leadership team executing a multi-year transformation strategy designed to expand Western Digital’s position in a rapidly evolving storage industry. Campbell played an important role in the acquisition of SanDisk and in building the company’s technology capability and storage solutions portfolio.

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