NetApp appoints Jurgen Hofkens CTO for EMEA and LATAM

NetApp has appointed Jurgen Hofkens as chief technology officer and vice president of sales engineering for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) and Latin America (LATAM). He will lead the company’s technical strategy, customer engagement and efforts to help customers deploy AI, protect data sovereignty and run infrastructure on-premises, at the edge and in public clouds.

Hofkens reports to Willem Hendrickx, NetApp’s senior vice president and general manager for EMEA and LATAM. The company said the role will focus on how organizations design and deploy data infrastructure across regions as enterprises move AI projects from experimentation into production and face stricter data privacy and security requirements.

Hofkens joins from Amazon Web Services, where he led go-to-market strategy for AI infrastructure across EMEA and oversaw technical execution and customer outcomes as organizations scaled AI initiatives. At AWS he led EMEA technical teams covering core services and advanced computing, an experience NetApp cited as relevant to helping customers build AI-capable data platforms.

Hofkens said he will spend time working directly with customers and partners to understand their challenges and co-develop solutions. “Every CIO and CISO I speak with is asking the same three questions: how do I turn my data into an AI advantage, how do I keep it sovereign, private, and secure, and how do I keep the flexibility to run it wherever the business needs it — on-premises, at the edge, or in any cloud?”

Hendrickx noted that customers and partners face changes in how data is prepared for AI and protected against cyber threats. NetApp said it is increasing investment in sales engineering, AI and cybersecurity teams across EMEA and LATAM to meet rising customer demand.

NetApp said Hofkens’ role will support customers as they scale AI workloads across hybrid environments while managing performance, security and regulatory requirements.