Avi Networks today announced the appointment of Mark Anderson as executive chairman. In this role, Anderson will work closely with CEO Amit Pandey and his executive team to help Avi further accelerate its revenue and customer growth.
Anderson is a seasoned Avi Networks executive with a proven track record in guiding enterprise technology organizations as they grow and scale. As the former president of Palo Alto Networks, Anderson helped grow the company from pre-IPO to one of the leaders in enterprise security. As EVP of worldwide sales at F5 Networks, he oversaw a 1,000-person sales team and played a key role in growing F5’s annual revenue to more than $1B.
“We are excited to appoint Mark to the Executive Chairman role to help us further our great momentum,” said Amit Pandey, CEO of Avi Networks. “Mark has a deep understanding of our domain and our target customers among Global 2000 enterprises and will work closely with me and my executive team to scale our sales organization and our go-to-market initiatives.”
“Avi Networks is the next generation of application delivery,” Anderson said. “Those inside the industry know that customers are moving quickly towards software-defined architectures. Here, one must support multi-cloud environments, drive needed automation, and enable self-service adoption. I see Avi’s growing traction with many of the largest enterprises in the world, and I’m excited to get the chance to be more hands-on with the Avi team.”
More than 200% year-over-year growth with significant adoption by the Global 2000, including 25% of the Fortune 50. Series D funding with an investment from Cisco Investments along with DAG Ventures, Greylock Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Menlo Ventures for its oversubscribed $60 million round. This brings Avi’s total funding to $115 million. Global expansion including a new presence in Australia and New Zealand. Launch of Universal Service Mesh as the future of application delivery, security, and visibility, with the potential to reshape the nearly $12B market for application services. Launch of Avi SaaS, the industry’s first SaaS solution for multi-cloud load balancing to deliver consistent capabilities regardless of infrastructure, accelerate time-to-value, lower OpEx, and drive operational simplicity.
Anderson currently sits on the board of Alteryx in addition to chairing the Avi Networks board. He is also a board member of the Boys and Girls Club of Silicon Valley. Anderson holds a Bachelor of Arts in business and economics from York University in Toronto.
