Just last week VMware Inc. President and Chief Operating Officer Carl Eschenbach (above right) joined IBM cloud chief Robert LeBlanc on stage at IBM’s big InterConnect conference to announce what IBM billed as a significant partnership between the two companies on hybrid cloud.

Now Eschenbach is heading out the door to join a venture capital firm Sequoia Capital Operations LLC. While his departure doesn’t affect the IBM partnership, it continues an exodus of senior VMware executives amid turmoil at parent company EMC, which is being acquired by Dell Inc.

VMware issued a low-key announcement, saying only that Eschenbach is leaving to “pursue a new career opportunity” and that he will continue to advise CEO Pat Gelsinger and the VMware executive team. Forbes confirmed that the Sequoia move.

The VMware team that Eschenbach will continue to advise is in transition in light of several notable departures over the past six months. Chief Strategist Chuck Hollis and Chief Technology Officer Ben Fathi both departed in August. Martin Casado, who formerly headed up the virtualization giant’s NSX software defined networking business, is leaving to join venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz LLC. CFO Jonathan Chadwick also left in January for destinations unknown.

Eschenbach’s position won’t be directly filled, but will be divided among four other executives: Maurizio Carli will take on worldwide sales, Peter McKay will take over the Americas field organization, CTO Ray O’Farrell adds responsibility for global services and customer advocacy and Executive Vice President Sanjay Poonen will lead the company’s worldwide marketing and communications functions.

Exchenbach played a key role in VMware’s growth. He joined the company in 2002 when annual revenues were $31 million and the company employed 200 people. VMware today is a $6 billion company with more than 18,000 employees.

Eschenbach “worked closely with technology and channel partners to make VMware pervasive in enterprise data centers,” said Stu Miniman (@stu), principal research contributor at Wikibon. “Carl’s move to Sequoia, similar to Martin Casado’s to Andreessen Horowitz, highlights the strength of VMware talent.”

However, a changing business model, uncertainty about how the Dell acquisition will shake out and questions about the strength of VMware’s public cloud strategy have created unease among investors and executives. “VMware’s growth in areas of cloud, networking and mobile alters the relationship that it has with the technology and channel partners that have helped it reach its current dominant position,” Miniman said.