Jerry Kennelly has been leading Riverbed as the company’s CEO since 2002, and he was also a co-founder of the company. On April 3, Riverbed announced Kennelly’s successor will be the company’s senior vice president and chief sales officer, Paul Mountford.
The company that Kennelly has lead for nearly two decades has transformed itself significantly over the years as the industry around it has shifted. Riverbed was originally known as a network optimization vendor and still has a strong position in that space, though the company now brands itself as a digital performance company.
“I’m extremely proud of what our team has built at Riverbed the last 16 years, growing from a start-up to a billion-dollar company serving 30,000 customers and every Forbes Global 100 company,” Kennelly stated. “Riverbed is experiencing significant market momentum in today’s digital world, and I’ve never been more confident about the future of our company and opportunities ahead.”
Under Kennelly’s leadership, Riverbed was acquired by private equity firm Thoma Bravo in a 2014 deal valued at $3.6 billion.
New CEO
Riverbed’s new CEO Paul Mountford joined the company four years ago and has led the company’s growing sales efforts. Mountford’s previous positions include 16 years spent in senior leadership roles at Cisco.
“Riverbed is an incredible company with a history of driving disruptive innovation in the market, and I’m honored to lead this team as the next CEO,” Mountford stated. “We have an extraordinary opportunity in front of us to lead businesses forward as they modernize their IT architecture to take full advantage of cloud and mobile technologies and accelerate their digital strategies.”
Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at EnterpriseNetworkingPlanet and InternetNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.
