CHARLES Giancarlo, chief executive officer (CEO) of Pure Storage, which develops hardware and software used by data centre operators and enterprise customers, has over his long career faced and overcome several hurdles. But none of his past experiences prepared him for the twin challenges of segueing his employees to a remote working environment due to the novel coronavirus pandemic while he himself became one of the early victims of Covid-19.

Mr Giancarlo and his team were busy transiting the some-3,500 Puritans (the internal nickname for Pure Storage staff) around the world to remote working protocols in March when he developed fever and symptoms associated with the Covid-19 infection.

"It turned out to be a full-blown infection and I had fever for 12 days," he recalls. Despite that, he was able to work for the first seven or eight days. "I held video conferences with my colleagues while I had fever and the nights were horrible," reacalls Mr Giancarlo, who has since fully recovered.