Hitachi Vantara names Akinobu Shimada CEO

Hitachi Vantara appointed Akinobu Shimada as chief executive officer effective April 1, 2026, and Sheila Rohra resigned from the role effective March 31, 2026. The leadership change altered the company’s top executive leadership.

During her tenure, which began in February 2023, Rohra drew on two decades of leadership experience and directed a narrower strategic focus and growth agenda. The company reported improved profitability alongside revenue growth, expansion of storage technology platforms, the launch of Hitachi iQ to support AI-ready infrastructure solutions, and strategic alliances with NVIDIA and Supermicro.

The release emphasized storage as a central element of the organization’s data infrastructure work and cited efforts underpinned by reliability and resilience for mission–critical workloads. It referenced storage technology platforms, the Hitachi iQ offering for AI-ready infrastructure solutions, and relationships intended to support Artificial Intelligence (AI) and hybrid cloud adoption.

Akinobu Shimada had spent more than 30 years with Hitachi and led initiatives in business strategy, technical strategy, and product strategy and development for storage and related hardware and software businesses. He served as Global Executive and President of Hitachi Vantara Japan and contributed to advancing the company’s data infrastructure services globally.

“I am incredibly proud of the meaningful progress we have made in strengthening our data infrastructure portfolio and delivering trusted, high-value solutions to customers around the globe,” said Rohra.

Shimada was appointed CEO effective April 1, 2026, and he will continue as President of Hitachi Vantara Japan; Rohra resigned for personal reasons effective March 31, 2026.