Avi Networks names Mark Anderson as Executive Chairman

Avi Networks, while offers a SaaS-based Software Load Balancer, Intelligent Web Application Firewall (iWAF), and Universal Service Mesh, announced the appointment of Mark Anderson as executive chairman.

Anderson is the former president of Palo Alto Networks and previously was 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. Anderson currently sits on the board of Alteryx.

“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 also cited the following recent milestones:

• 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.