Rajiv Thakkar

Captain
DISC Type : DS

Director, Product Marketing, AI Solutions at Pure Storage

San Francisco, California, United States

Overview

Rajiv is the AI Solution Marketing Leader at Pure Storage, driving GTM strategy for the companys AI solutions. An expert in cloud infrastructure, Kubernetes, and data platforms, he previously led marketing for Portworx and VMwares Tanzu services. People who have worked with him describe him as thoughtful, innovative, energetic, and enthusiastic.

He earned a Master of Science from Texas A&M University and has an Executive Education from Northwesterns Kellogg School of Management.

Unique fact: In his first year at VMware, he led the product marketing efforts for the biggest release of vSphere.

Personality Overview

Decisive But Calm

Planner & Achiever

Output-Driven

They exhibit a rare combination of being result-oriented but patient at the same time.  They are very professional in their approach and can weigh multiple perspectives together. Reading between the lines and seeing beyond your words comes naturally to them.

Topics They Care About

Enterprise AI Infrastructure
His current role is leading AI Solution Marketing at Pure Storage, focusing on the data infrastructure required to scale enterprise AI initiatives from experimentation to execution.
Container Data Platforms
As the former head of product marketing for Portworx, he is an expert on running stateful applications on Kubernetes and is a frequent speaker on the topic.
Modernizing Virtualization
He speaks on the evolving landscape of modern virtualization, particularly on how enterprises can run both VMs and containers on a single, unified data platform.

Media Appearances

Rajiv has no verified media appearances

Work History

6-2025
Director, Product Marketing, AI Solutions at Pure Storage
10-2021 - 6-2025
Director of Product & Solution Marketing, Cloud Native Business Unit at Pure Storage
3-2019 - 9-2021
Group Manager, Product Marketing, Cloud Services at VMware
Senior Product Manager, Software Defined Datacenter & Cloud Group at Hewlett Packard Enterprise
Sales Manager, Siemens Building Technologies at Siemens

Education

2020 - 2021
Executive Education from Northwestern University - Kellogg School of Management
Master of Science (MS) from Texas A&M University

More Information

Social Presence :

Prographics :

Exp : 6 Location : San Francisco, California, United States Job Level : Mid-senior Designation : Director, Product Marketing, AI Solutions at Pure Storage
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Insights For Selling To Rajiv

During A Call Or A Meeting

DO's

  • Focus on the results that your product produces, expect some strategic questions in return
  • Suggest clear next steps with confidence, don't be vague or hesitant
  • You can spend time on BANT (or other qualification methodology) but keep it to the point

DONT's

  • Don't focus too much on mutual contacts or bother about other stakeholders, focus on them
  • Don't go over them unless you are left with no other option
  • Don't shy away from asking hard questions, but be extra polite

When Cold Calling

When Writing An Email

While Negotiating & Closing

    The secret to closing fast with Rajiv is

  • Strong proof of impact and their conviction will matter the most, but they wouldn't want to act unilaterally either
  • Will you ever get a clear answer from Rajiv

  • They will say no if they are not convinced but you will have to prompt them.

Insights For Deal Planning

    How fast (or slow) will Rajiv move?

  • They will want to understand things well but can move fast once they have a clear picture.
  • Can Rajiv take some risk or not?

  • They have good risk tolerance but are likely to think it through once or twice.

You And Rajiv

Personality Compatibility


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