Over its 25-year history, Sun Microsystems has seen many talented executives come and go.

Among them founder Vinod Khosla and long time CEO Scott McNealy (now Chairman).

But one executive seems to have been at Sun forever even as the company’s prospects soared during the dot com days, faded subsequently and then painfully stabilized.

And that is Anil Gadre, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of Sun.

We remember meeting this Indian-American at a Sun function in New York City about 12 years ago.

Although we can’t remember Anil’s exact title, he was most likely a middle management guy at Sun those days.

Java was still very new – and very hot too – and Anil spoke enthusiastically about Java as well as Sun’s product portfolio of Sparc workstations, the strengths of its Solaris operating system and the power of the underlying RISC architecture.

We remember coming back from our meeting with Anil at the Sheraton Towers in Mid-Town Manhattan on a cold New York evening pretty impressed with the fella.

We were sure Anil would go places. And he has.

Not only has Anil survived Sun’s dark days of retrenchments, exodus of senior executives, steep losses and serious doubts about Sun’s very survival, but has grown in the organization.

Today as Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of Sun, Anil Gadre has responsibility for all of Sun’s marketing, which includes branding, market analysis, perception improvement, introductions and demand creation. 

According to Anil’s profile on Sun’s web site, he is also responsible for coordinating the product-definition and product marketing functions across the company and developing the expertise, discipline, and bench strength necessary to support Sun’s Business Units.

In a 17-year long career at Sun, Anil’s roles have been varied and included VP of Product Marketing, VP of North American Field Marketing, General Manager of the Solaris group and VP of Software Marketing.

Anil previously worked for the startup workstation company Apollo Computer and Hewlett Packard.

Anil has a B.S. in electrical engineering from Stanford University and a Master of Management degree from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.