A10 Networks has today announced the appointment of Ray Smets as vice president for worldwide sales.
Reporting directly to A10 founder and CEO Lee Chen, Ray is responsible for managing and growing the application networking vendor’s global sales organisation.
Smets (pictured) comes most recently from Metaswitch Networks, where he was was senior VP of field operations, sales and international development. Prior to that he was VP and general manager at Cisco, leading the firm’s global wireless/mobility business unit.
“I am extremely pleased to have Ray join our leadership team. Ray has the industry background and experience to take us to the next stage of growth worldwide,” comments Chen. “Our worldwide customers and partners will benefit from Ray’s leadership skills, industry experience and operations expertise as we continue to expand our product portfolio.”
“I am excited for the opportunity to lead A10’s worldwide sales team,” says Smets. “A10 has developed significant momentum with our cutting-edge technology and world-class team and is emerging as the global leader in application networking. I look forward to expanding our business further by benefitting more customers and partners with the unique competitive advantage that A10’s next generation solutions provide.”
2013 saw A10 launch a new partner programme and channel strategy for the region that included focusing on a smaller number of partners. “We do not want hundreds of partners across EMEA as we then end up in the unfortunate situation that F5 Networks finds itself where partners are locked in destructive competition that results in extremely slim margins,” commented the firm’s VP of sales for EMEA, Andre Stewart at the time.
“Instead, we will work closely with each partner on 10 target accounts to help grow or win new business instead of spreading our resources too thinly which helps neither us as a company, our partners or end-customers.”
The firm recently launched a recruitment drive to support its expansion in EMEA.
