SAN JOSE, Calif., - A10 Networks™, the technology leader in Application Networking, 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 A10's global Sales organization, Sales Operations and Business Development. Ray's charter is to drive global sales growth for A10 by building upon the success of its existing growth.
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Ray has deep expertise taking companies to the next level of growth, with over 25 years of success leading high-growth teams in the IT, telecom, networking and security markets. Most recently, Ray was Senior Vice President of Field Operations, Sales and International Development for Metaswitch Networks, Inc. Prior to Metaswitch, he was Vice President and General Manager at Cisco Systems, leading its global Wireless/Mobility business unit. Ray also held executive Worldwide Sales, Marketing and Business Development positions at Packeteer Inc., Netopia Inc. and McAfee Security. He began his career at BellSouth Corporation (acquired by AT&T) where he served 15 years and became VP of Network Transformation and Corporate Officer.
Ray holds 15 technology patents and speaks frequently at industry engagements. He holds an M.B.A degree from Nova-Southeastern University, a B.S. degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Florida, and is an alumnus of the Stanford University Executive Program.
"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," said Lee Chen, Founder and CEO for A10 Networks. "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," said Ray Smets, VP of Worldwide Sales for A10 Networks. "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."
A10 achieved record revenue in its fiscal year 2012, supported by offices in 23 countries, 3,000 customers in over 45 countries, and nearly 600 employees -- leading to No. 1 market share in Japan and No. 3 worldwide.
A10 has experienced rapid growth in the Application Delivery Controller (ADC) market. Its next-generation ADCs, the A10 Thunder™ Unified Application Service Gateways (UASGs), and industry-proven AX Series ADCs are hardware and software appliances that provide solutions for Application Delivery, Security, Cloud, Software-defined Networking (SDN) and Next Gen Networking.
Built on the award-winning Advanced Core Operating System (ACOS) architecture, A10 Thunder and AX Series respond to the needs of customers, from carriers to enterprises, in present and future networks with the latest software technology in a timely manner. With A10, customers can accelerate, optimize and secure their applications to increase their competitive advantage.
A10 Thunder™ UASGs already have garnered four awards since their recent introduction in May 2013, including two Best of Microsoft TechEd 2013 awards for the hardware and overall attendees' pick categories by Windows IT Pro . At Interop Tokyo 2013, Thunder won awards for Performance Optimization and DDoS Mitigation.
