VMware Explore 2025 | Nicole Chesmore, Grinnell Mutual

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Nicole Chesmore, Grinnell Mutual

Nicole Chesmore

Assistant Vice President IT Security and Infrastructure Services Grinnell Mutual

In this VMware Explore 2025 interview, Nicole Chesmore, Assistant VP of IT Security and Infrastructure Services at Grinnell Mutual, joins theCUBE’s John Furrier and Rebecca Knight to share how a small but mighty 17-person IT team is driving modernization with VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0. Chesmore explains how critical timing around data center leases, cost pressures and a need for transparency pushed the company to adopt VCF as a strategic foundation for private cloud.

The discussion highlights Grinnell Mutual’s journey from skepticism to successful ... Read more

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What were the considerations and outcomes related to the hardware and software purchases when the organization's leases were coming up? add

What considerations influence an insurance company's decision to adopt cloud technology versus maintaining on-premises solutions? add

What challenges and opportunities are present in the work culture and development processes at Grinnell Mutual? add

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Nicole Chesmore, Grinnell Mutual

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Rebecca Knight

>> Good afternoon everyone, and welcome back to theCUBE's live coverage of VMware Explorer here at the Venetian in Las Vegas. I'm your host, Rebecca Knight, sitting alongside my co-host and analyst, John Furrier. It's always so much fun to talk to customers.

>> Yeah, and the keynote presenter from the company highlighted by VMware was an awesome presentation, so I can't wait to get into it.

Rebecca Knight

>> Exactly, exactly. So I'd like to introduce our next guest. She's Nicole Chesmore, Assistant Vice President, IT Security and Infrastructure Services at Grinnell Mutual. Thank you so much for coming on the-

Nicole Chesmore

>> Thank you so much for having us. We're excited to be here.

Rebecca Knight

>> So as John was saying, your colleague Jeremy Wright was up on the main stage yesterday and talked a little bit about the small and mighty team at Grinnell Mutual from Iowa. Set the stage for us, tell our viewers a little bit about your company.

Nicole Chesmore

>> Grinnell Mutual Reinsurance Company, we're based in Iowa. We're 116-year-old company and we have continued to grow and modernize and work really closely with our business partners to make sure we're providing trust, honesty, and appropriate services in the insurance industry. So, that's a little bit about us.

Rebecca Knight

>> So, go back to the big picture and tell us a little bit about what were the business or technology challenges that you were wrestling with?

Nicole Chesmore

>> We had a unique opportunity. We do a lot of leasing and we have two different data centers and our leases were coming up. And we had the opportunity to realign not only our hardware purchases as we were moving forward, but a lot of our software purchases. And with doing a lot of the analysis with that, we figured out that if we could move forward with BCF, that we'd have some substantial cost savings. Now, I will be the first to admit that when Broadcom first came on and we heard of the takeover, we had a lot of concern about pricing, pricing structures changing, how that would impact a small organization like ours. What we found is that when we dug in, the capabilities were there and actually it allowed us to provide a lot more functionality without still reducing costs for our organization over the next five years.

>> So, the timing was everything.

Nicole Chesmore

>> Timing was everything.

>> You had the data centers, which is a scarce resource, having those, what was it about VCF that sold you on that? Because that was a moment in time for you guys.

Nicole Chesmore

>> It was, and it wasn't one that we took lightly by any means. We were pretty skeptical, and I think as many heard Jeremy speak earlier today that we were out here last year and really were questioning it. What sold us is the capabilities, but also the transparency. So, we're a big believer in breaking down silos and making sure that we can continue to do things faster, more stable and provide more security, but also to make sure our organization's working together. So, I do have a unique opportunity where I have our infrastructure teams, our IT procurement teams and our cybersecurity teams that report up to me. So, bringing in a tool set that breaks down all of those silos was a big win.

>> Yeah, you get more transparency, you can see all the data.

Nicole Chesmore

>> You can see everything.

>> Certainly the cyber side with all the ransomware attacks and all the action happening, having all that available.

Nicole Chesmore

>> Well, and also how it handles single sign-on moving forward. So, there's a lot of capabilities that have just been made easier.

Rebecca Knight

>> Insurance is highly regulated, security is critical, compliance is critical. How does VCF 9.0 fit into your overall IT strategy?

Nicole Chesmore

>> Well, as I said, we are a small organization, and one of the things that is a critical resource for us is actually resources. So, being able to share that workload between teams and to bring that visibility to everybody on the same team is probably one of the strongest benefits that we're excited about seeing with VCF 9.0. We are relatively new. We've only been on it with our upgrades the last few months, but we're already seeing a tremendous impact. So, allowing your systems teams versus your DevOps teams versus your cyber teams to get real time and see the complete picture has really been amazing.

>> Nicole, I have to ask, being small and 116 year old company in Iowa, I'm sure there's a lot of teamwork's important. What were the alternatives, again, back to the days when you're in a critical juncture, what were some of the choices that you were looking at? And beyond the finance impact is obviously cloud option, modernize the full estate.

Nicole Chesmore

>> I am sure as every company, everyone's going, well, why aren't you in the cloud? Why aren't you going to the cloud? But we are an insurance company. We do take risk-based approach to everything we do, but we're also a small organization when it comes to technology. We focus on our customers and that's the insurance side of the business. So ,it was finding a way to balance and look at whether or not we should go full cloud, whether or not we wanted to just stay on-prem, but we wanted cloud capabilities. But we wanted to be able to protect our data and make sure that we understood the cost we were controlling where the data was.

>> We wanted to keep the data on-premises close in your data center. That was core or core strategy or it was-

Nicole Chesmore

>> It is important to me to make sure our data's secure and make sure we know where it is, and with every company there is the right fit for each part of the organization. But a lot of it is also cost. When we did a cost analysis between going out and doing the same structures with some of the big players, we were able to do it more affordably by keeping it with our own private cloud.

Rebecca Knight

>> So, you mentioned you were very skeptical this time last year. Is this going to be right, and the cost being a big hurdle, what has the transition looked like for your team in terms of surprises, good and bad along the way?

Nicole Chesmore

>> I am happy to say that it has been remarkably a very pleasant, easy transition for our teams, both with our moving to VCF and with our upgrade to nine has went tremendously smooth over the time. I am sure like every out there and every small organization or IT organization, when Broadcom came in and was changing the pricing models, there's a lot of questions. And I know I gave my business partners calls right away and said, "What's going to happen? How is this going?" But what we've really found is when you look into things is that with the scope of products and the capabilities, we've actually ended up with more capability and more visibility. And one of our core factors is making sure that we have stable and secure platforms, and so this is just one more tool in our toolbox to help us get there.

>> Nicole, I want to ask, because this came up a lot and other interviews, is that with the enterprise cloud, private cloud from VCF, the purchase of the gear, the hardware, is manageable because it's not just going to sit there unused. We all know there's times where the compute cycles, the GPUs are going to be working, to flex the resource. Did that come up from your infrastructure team? How important was that piece? Was it a key?

Nicole Chesmore

>> It is a part of every discussion for any infrastructure thing. It's something that we're always paying attention to, and because we do our own DR, we have our own data centers, it's something that we have to pay attention to. I think all of the aspects are just as important. But yes, that is a key component. Security components of it is also in the visibility and breaking down the silos between the teams. I mean, when you have a DevOps team, an infrastructure team, systems, security, that visibility is really important and the ease of use is really important.

>> The private AI thing is interesting to me, because it's a feature of VCF, and Chris Wolf was on yesterday talking to us. He said it's very intentional in a way. It's not like pie in the sky, AI sovereignty, it's more of a policy conversation. It's much more intentional around the security side.

Nicole Chesmore

>> Yes.

>> So I'm curious, did that factor in, are you skeptical on private AI? What's your opinion on private AI? Are you going to use it, maybe see how it goes? What-

Nicole Chesmore

>> I think we can honestly say that we will be seeing how it goes, as AI goes. AI is another tool in the toolbox, and it'll take some time as it works its way into the insurance world.

Rebecca Knight

>> One of the things that we always say here on theCUBE is there's the technology and then there's the people. And so when you are trying to deploy a different kind of technology, it really involves a lot of change management and you're a seventeen-person team. If something's not going well, you're going to be hearing about it all the time. So, what is the feedback you've gotten and how has it changed the way the team works together with each other day to day, but also with developers and other external stakeholders?

Nicole Chesmore

>> I think one of the things that comes into play there is I think everyone's a little worried about their silo, their how is it going to impact them now a lot of people have that same visibility, that same job. But luckily with the organization, and for those that have known much about Grinnell Mutual, the culture at our company is absolutely amazing. So, the team working together and they were excited together. They use this as a growth opportunity for them to be able to learn more skill sets than they did as a scare factor or technique. So, most of the time, I will say it's been very exciting. One of our larger challenges is, as every company, bringing your development teams to the table as well. And one of the very first projects that we took off with was what we jokingly call Operation Monday, which was how to get our developers capabilities in their hands to give them stable environments in a quicker manner with the tool sets that they need on a regular basis without having a three-day wait because they need something from us. So, that already is hitting the ground and running, and we're seeing the benefits.

>> What's the feedback developers will give you instant feedback on?

Nicole Chesmore

>> They're not shy.

>> What's been the results? Because they're not going to be afraid to chirp a little bit when things aren't going well.

Nicole Chesmore

>> They're not known to be the shyest group.

>> Exactly.

Nicole Chesmore

>> So, it's been very positive overall.

>> Great.

Rebecca Knight

>> Excellent, excellent. So looking, you're here at VMware. You're having lots of conversations, sometimes in front of 4,000 people, but you're also talking in the hallways with other companies. Are you doing a lot of learning from them in terms of how they're using VCF 9.0, and hey, I want to bring that back to Iowa? Or are you also sharing your use cases and how you've had success with it?

Nicole Chesmore

>> I think one of the biggest things I've seen since we've been here is that both at the lunches, breakfasts, getting stopped in the hallways, we're being asked as being a somewhat small organization how we manage to get leadership to understand and whether or not we're seeing the benefit. There are a lot of questions from small organizations that would only use one or two pieces of VMware in the past of how are they justifying the whole stack? And what we're saying is that we're already seeing the positive impact and we're seeing the capabilities of using the entire stack. And so, the capabilities are outweighing some of the surprise and some of their concerns with cost.

>> What are some of the benefits you're seeing besides the financial one? Is it just productivity? Is it faster code shipping?

Nicole Chesmore

>> One of the things when we looked at doing and bringing in our own private cloud network is we knew that one of the things we're limited on is resources, as in individuals, staff. Our staff had used VM. We were aware of it. We knew and understood that capability. But to go to some of the big cloud providers, we would've had to bring on new staff, new skill sets to bring that up. What this has allowed us to do is to provide all of the private cloud capabilities, but with our own staff and make it easier. We're finding it easier to use, we're getting more efficiencies, and we didn't have to do staff add across our organization, which is important.

Rebecca Knight

>> And as your colleague, Jeremy White, said, allows you to punch above your weight a little bit too. You are a 17-person, small but mighty team. So, what advice would you have for other IT professionals, other IT leaders who are considering VCF 9.0, but maybe where you were a year ago and a little skeptical?

Nicole Chesmore

>> I think one of the biggest things that I'll say about this project is bring the right people to the table. Now, I'm very lucky. A lot of the silos and groups that were impacted by this do report up through our area, so it was easy to bring them to the table. But making sure you have those right groups involved in the beginning will make this transition amazing. The other thing I will say is that the support we got from Broadcom to bring this in and just stand this back was absolutely amazing. They came in and made this a simple transition for us.

Rebecca Knight

>> So, when we're back here next year for VMware Explorer in 2026, what do you hope to be talking about? What kinds of success stories do you hope to be sharing?

Nicole Chesmore

>> We're hoping to be able to share ways that we can even save more money, that we brought more flexibility, that we're able to give more real time capabilities in our catalogs, to our development teams, to others in the organization, but also that we've continued to have more success, lowered cost, and kept our stability and security.

Rebecca Knight

>> Excellent. Well, Nicole Chesmore, thank you so much for coming on theCUBE. It was a pleasure having you.

Nicole Chesmore

>> Thank you for having us.

>> Thanks.

Rebecca Knight

>> I'm Rebecca Knight for John Furrier. Stay tuned for more of theCUBE's live coverage from VMware Explorer. You're watching theCUBE, the leader in enterprise tech news and analysis.