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Cloud Networking Company Architects for the Long-Term, Bringing on Former Leaders from Distinguished Technology Organizations
Santa Clara, Calif., May 15, 2024 – Aviatrix®, the cloud networking expert, today introduced key new members of its executive leadership team, including former leaders from Cisco, Microsoft, Paxos, Venafi, Walmart and more. The company also shared its direction for the business under the guidance of CEO Doug Merritt.
Merritt joined Aviatrix in June 2023 following a six-year tenure as CEO and President of Splunk. During that time, his shifts in the company’s technology roadmap, financial model, and go-to-market approach dramatically increased Splunk’s market capitalization, and revenues grew from the equivalent of $100 million in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) to nearly $3 billion in ARR. At Aviatrix, Merritt is leveraging his unique skills and experience to focus on strategic initiatives including GTM strategy and execution, friction-free pricing and packaging, a compelling product roadmap, an unparalleled employee experience, and building operational efficiency leveraging tools including AI.
To help execute this vision, Merritt most recently brought on two key leaders:
- Sandeep Singh Kohli, formerly at Venafi, will take the helm as Chief Marketing Officer at Aviatrix. An accomplished CMO leader with over 25 years of experience in building high-performing teams, he has strategically positioned companies such as Kong, MuleSoft, Brocade, and Cisco Systems to rapidly increase revenues and brand equity.
- Varsha Vig, formerly at Paxos, brings her unique talents to the role of Chief Human Resources Officer at Aviatrix. Varsha has designed and implemented strategic HR programs at organizations including Blink Health, Compass, Lyft, and McDonald’s to enhance employees’ value proposition at the organization, while helping to drive business results.
These two leaders join a growing and impressive bench of talent that has recently joined Aviatrix:
- Chief Revenue Officer, John Donnelly, formerly at Microsoft, whose track record includes exits for CloudKnox (acquired by Microsoft), MobileIron (IPO), and Vontu (acquired by Symantec).
- Chief Architect, Engineering, Georgi Khomeriki, formerly the Sr. Distinguished Technical Architect at Walmart.
- Chief Network Architect, Satish Mahadevan, formerly Principal Software Engineer at Cisco with 20 years of experience in the design and development of complex systems and networking software.
- Vice President of Professional Services, Jason Berkin, formerly at Hashi and startup Harness, with 15+ years of experience in management, human capital strategy, client relations, talent development, and performance management.
- Vice President of Software Engineering, Murali Damisetti, a former Technical Lead and Manager at Google whose experience spans Broadcom, Alcatel-Lucent, and more.
- Vice President of Alliances and Channels, David Hawk, whose career spans Microsoft, CloudKnox, Palo Alto Networks, MobileIron, SAP, and more.
- Vice President of Financial Planning and Analysis, Tom Nguyen, who has 20+ years of experience in finance, operations, and sales strategy management for early stage and multi-billion-dollar technology companies including Oracle and Palo Alto Networks.
- Vice President of Legal, Scott Trainor, whose roles and assignments have reached across the globe with DocuSign, PagerDuty, SAP, PeopleSoft, and others.
“When I joined Aviatrix, I knew we had an innovative and market-leading product, along with customers that are just as passionate about it as our own team. What I’ve seen since then only further reinforces my initial impression,” said Merritt. ”With our strong bench of existing talent and the addition of so many other distinguished domain and industry experts, Aviatrix is on track to define this critical and highly impactful new category in cloud networking – creating customers for life and architecting a truly generational business.”
Accompanying the new executive additions, Merritt and Aviatrix are building a tech-enabled and collaborative company culture. This includes enabling its team with cutting-edge generative AI models and tools that are enhancing everything from developer efficiency, to highly informed and engaging marketing and sales interactions, to next generation customer support – ultimately delivering tangible results for customers while improving team productivity and job satisfaction. Aviatrix’s Chief Information Officer, John Jendricks, has been tasked with spearheading this initiative.
“Aviatrix is a company that’s focused on delivering the business benefits that software-defined networking and cloud have been promising for years,” said Bob Laliberte, Principal Analyst at theCUBE Research. “Its leadership team and growth strategy are aligned to drive long term value and investment protection for its customers while establishing itself as category-defining technology for the cloud era.”
Amid this evolution, Aviatrix has achieved several recognitions and milestones in recent months. The Aviatrix Distributed Cloud Firewall, launched in 2023, won a Cybersecurity Excellence Award and helped the company secure a place on the inaugural Fortune Cyber 60 list. It has also been recognized as a fast-growing company and market leader by organizations including CRN, GigaOm, Deloitte, and Futuriom. Internationally, its customer base, partnerships, and team have expanded rapidly, strengthening the company’s global footprint.
To learn more about the Aviatrix Cloud Networking Platform, visit https://aviatrix.com.
About Aviatrix
Aviatrix® is the cloud networking expert. We’re on a mission to make cloud networking simple so companies stay agile. Trusted by more than 500 of the world’s leading enterprises, our cloud networking platform creates the visibility, security, and control needed to adapt with ease and move ahead at speed. Combined with the Aviatrix Certified Engineer (ACE) Program, the industry’s leading multicloud networking and security certification, Aviatrix empowers the cloud networking community to stay at the forefront of digital transformation. Learn more at www.aviatrix.com.