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Riverbed CEO Recognized on CRN List of Top 100 Executives

CRN, a brand of The Channel Company, has named Paul Mountford, Riverbed’s Chief Executive Officer, to its 2018 list of Top 100 Executives.

This annual list recognizes leaders from the technology industry who have played an integral role in shaping today’s IT channel, whether by driving huge cultural shifts, creating rich new opportunities, or forging innovative routes to success.

Mountford was appointed CEO of Riverbed in April 2018. He joined Riverbed in 2014 as SVP and Chief Sales Officer, leading the transformation of the global sales organization and partner program as Riverbed evolved into a multi-product platform company that delivers a modern IT architecture for today's digital enterprise. Mountford has played a key role in the execution of Riverbed’s multi-year digital performance strategy, which has included several strategic acquisitions, organic development of digital performance and cloud-based features and functionality, and integration across multiple solutions.

“Visionary and strategic leadership can make the difference between just surviving and actually excelling in this period of disruptive change for the IT channel,” said Bob Skelley, CEO, The Channel Company. “In order for technology suppliers and solution providers to thrive and stay ahead of the competition, they need leaders who are able to envision both the future of the channel and the role their organization needs to play in order to create that reality. CRN’s 2018 Top 100 Executives embody these qualities. They are change agents who deliver unwavering guidance to their companies, always asking where are we headed and not being afraid to take the necessary steps to get there.”

“I am greatly honored to be considered an innovator in this distinguished list alongside my peers,” said Mountford. “The current shift to digital is revolutionary and we’re just at the beginning. Riverbed and our partners have a significant opportunity to help our customers turn digital strategies into digital performance, enabling them to rethink what’s possible. We’ve focused our innovation the last several years on developing the tools for organizations to fully manage and measure the digital experience, and the next-gen infrastructure to put those insights to work, delivering the agility and performance today’s modern enterprise requires.”

Prior to Riverbed, Mountford was CEO of Sentillian, a New York-based web intelligence startup focused on monitoring publicly shared content. Mountford also spent 16 years at Cisco in senior leadership roles, including running Cisco’s $34 billion Enterprise line of business, initiating and leading the company’s Emerging Markets division, and rebuilding and running Cisco’s market leading channel partner program from 2001 to 2006.

The Top 100 Executives list will be featured in the August 2018 issue of CRN.

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Riverbed CEO Recognized on CRN List of Top 100 Executives

CRN, a brand of The Channel Company, has named Paul Mountford, Riverbed’s Chief Executive Officer, to its 2018 list of Top 100 Executives.

This annual list recognizes leaders from the technology industry who have played an integral role in shaping today’s IT channel, whether by driving huge cultural shifts, creating rich new opportunities, or forging innovative routes to success.

Mountford was appointed CEO of Riverbed in April 2018. He joined Riverbed in 2014 as SVP and Chief Sales Officer, leading the transformation of the global sales organization and partner program as Riverbed evolved into a multi-product platform company that delivers a modern IT architecture for today's digital enterprise. Mountford has played a key role in the execution of Riverbed’s multi-year digital performance strategy, which has included several strategic acquisitions, organic development of digital performance and cloud-based features and functionality, and integration across multiple solutions.

“Visionary and strategic leadership can make the difference between just surviving and actually excelling in this period of disruptive change for the IT channel,” said Bob Skelley, CEO, The Channel Company. “In order for technology suppliers and solution providers to thrive and stay ahead of the competition, they need leaders who are able to envision both the future of the channel and the role their organization needs to play in order to create that reality. CRN’s 2018 Top 100 Executives embody these qualities. They are change agents who deliver unwavering guidance to their companies, always asking where are we headed and not being afraid to take the necessary steps to get there.”

“I am greatly honored to be considered an innovator in this distinguished list alongside my peers,” said Mountford. “The current shift to digital is revolutionary and we’re just at the beginning. Riverbed and our partners have a significant opportunity to help our customers turn digital strategies into digital performance, enabling them to rethink what’s possible. We’ve focused our innovation the last several years on developing the tools for organizations to fully manage and measure the digital experience, and the next-gen infrastructure to put those insights to work, delivering the agility and performance today’s modern enterprise requires.”

Prior to Riverbed, Mountford was CEO of Sentillian, a New York-based web intelligence startup focused on monitoring publicly shared content. Mountford also spent 16 years at Cisco in senior leadership roles, including running Cisco’s $34 billion Enterprise line of business, initiating and leading the company’s Emerging Markets division, and rebuilding and running Cisco’s market leading channel partner program from 2001 to 2006.

The Top 100 Executives list will be featured in the August 2018 issue of CRN.

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According to Auvik's 2025 IT Trends Report, 60% of IT professionals feel at least moderately burned out on the job, with 43% stating that their workload is contributing to work stress. At the same time, many IT professionals are naming AI and machine learning as key areas they'd most like to upskill ...

Businesses that face downtime or outages risk financial and reputational damage, as well as reducing partner, shareholder, and customer trust. One of the major challenges that enterprises face is implementing a robust business continuity plan. What's the solution? The answer may lie in disaster recovery tactics such as truly immutable storage and regular disaster recovery testing ...

IT spending is expected to jump nearly 10% in 2025, and organizations are now facing pressure to manage costs without slowing down critical functions like observability. To meet the challenge, leaders are turning to smarter, more cost effective business strategies. Enter stage right: OpenTelemetry, the missing piece of the puzzle that is no longer just an option but rather a strategic advantage ...

Amidst the threat of cyberhacks and data breaches, companies install several security measures to keep their business safely afloat. These measures aim to protect businesses, employees, and crucial data. Yet, employees perceive them as burdensome. Frustrated with complex logins, slow access, and constant security checks, workers decide to completely bypass all security set-ups ...

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Cloudbrink's Personal SASE services provide last-mile acceleration and reduction in latency

In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 13, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses hybrid multi-cloud networking strategy ... 

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In 2025, enterprise workflows are undergoing a seismic shift. Propelled by breakthroughs in generative AI (GenAI), large language models (LLMs), and natural language processing (NLP), a new paradigm is emerging — agentic AI. This technology is not just automating tasks; it's reimagining how organizations make decisions, engage customers, and operate at scale ...

In the early days of the cloud revolution, business leaders perceived cloud services as a means of sidelining IT organizations. IT was too slow, too expensive, or incapable of supporting new technologies. With a team of developers, line of business managers could deploy new applications and services in the cloud. IT has been fighting to retake control ever since. Today, IT is back in the driver's seat, according to new research by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) ...

In today's fast-paced and increasingly complex network environments, Network Operations Centers (NOCs) are the backbone of ensuring continuous uptime, smooth service delivery, and rapid issue resolution. However, the challenges faced by NOC teams are only growing. In a recent study, 78% state network complexity has grown significantly over the last few years while 84% regularly learn about network issues from users. It is imperative we adopt a new approach to managing today's network experiences ...

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