Software Defined Networking (SDN) vendor PLUMgrid today announced the appointment of a new CEO. Frankly, I liked their “old” CEO (and company co-founder) Awais Nemat, with whom I recently chatted at the OpenStack Vancouver event, but evolution and change are the nature of business.
Nemat isn’t disappearing. He’s set to be the chairman of the board of directors and will work with the new CEO, Larry Lang.
I personally had not ever spoken with or heard of Lang before this announcement, but his curriculum vitae includes stints as CEO of Quorum Labs, VP and GM of mobile at Cisco, and VP of product management at Ipsilon Networks.
“OpenStack adoption among our target markets is accelerating rapidly,” Nemat said in a statement. “Our strategy to launch the next phase of growth is centered on bringing aboard a CEO who could leverage our innovative technologies and reference customer wins into broad market adoption. “
PLUMgrid is active in the SDN space for OpenStack networking, which is an increasingly crowded market of vendors. The company recently announced its Open Networking Suite (ONS) version 3, adding a new network toolbox and improving VXLAN Tunnel Endpoint support.
A transition away from a founder-led organization to one led by an “outsider” isn’t all that strange, but it does come with risks. Sometimes it works and the new CEO is able to execute on the vision and instill additional management rigor with operational excellence. Sometimes the new CEO tries to remake a company culture in a bid to accelerate revenue and fails. Time will tell what kind of CEO Lang is at PLUMgrid.
Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at Enterprise Networking Planet and InternetNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.
