Riverbed announced that Rich McBee has been appointed President and CEO to drive continued momentum for the Company’s Digital Networking and Digital Experience Management businesses.
McBee is the former President and CEO of Mitel, a global leader in business communications.
McBee is a trusted leader with more than 30 years of experience holding top leadership roles driving market expansion, revenue growth and operations excellence at a range of technology companies. He departed Mitel after leading the company through a period of strategic transformation, including driving Mitel’s industry consolidation strategy, completing a dozen strategic transactions. During his eight-year tenure as CEO, Mitel evolved from a premise-based PBX pioneer to be the market leader of Public and Private Cloud Unified Communications and Collaboration solutions.
“Rich is a strong leader and strategist, and has a solid track record of driving business execution and results. Riverbed has experienced strong performance recently and Rich is the right leader to continue our upward momentum, as well as bring the passion and dedication to operational excellence that he is well known for in the industry,” said David Murphy, Riverbed Chairman and Senior Operating Partner, Thoma Bravo. “I look forward to working with Rich and the Riverbed executive team as we continue to deliver against our strategy and drive growth in two very unique and growing markets: Digital Networking and Digital Experience Management.”
“Riverbed has a well-respected brand, a history of innovation and a strong customer installed base that is well-earned,” said Rich McBee, President and CEO, Riverbed. “Riverbed’s current technology portfolio and strategy opens up significant market opportunities for our Company, as organizations worldwide are looking to capitalize on their digital transformation investments and enhance the digital experience of their users. I’m looking forward to working with our experienced team to accelerate our execution and drive great outcomes for Riverbed, as well as for our partners and customers.”
Orlando Bravo, Thoma Bravo Founder and Managing Partner, said, “Rich McBee has the ideal skills and experience to lead Riverbed through this next phase of growth while driving operational excellence. We are fully committed to Riverbed’s success, and look forward to continuing to deliver great value to Riverbed’s customers and partners, and maximizing the Company’s full potential in a $20 Billion total addressable market.”
Prior to transforming Mitel into a leading global provider of unified communications, McBee served as President of the Communications and Enterprise Group of Danaher Corporation. In this role, he was responsible for annual sales derived from carrier, enterprise, and SMB markets via both direct sales and channel partners. McBee joined Danaher in 2007 when they acquired Tektronix Communications, where he had worked at since 1998 in a variety of leadership positions including: Senior Vice President and General Manager, Communications Business Unit; Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales, Service and Marketing; and Vice President of Marketing and Strategic Initiatives.
McBee holds a Master's Degree in Business Administration from the Chapman School of Business and Economics and graduated from the United States Air Force Academy with a Bachelor of Science in 1986.
The Riverbed Board of Directors conducted a thorough search for the new CEO. Prior to McBee’s appointment, Riverbed Chairman David Murphy took on the interim role of CEO.
Riverbed is a portfolio company of Thoma Bravo.
The Latest
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 ...
In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 13, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses hybrid multi-cloud networking strategy ...
In high-traffic environments, the sheer volume and unpredictable nature of network incidents can quickly overwhelm even the most skilled teams, hindering their ability to react swiftly and effectively, potentially impacting service availability and overall business performance. This is where closed-loop remediation comes into the picture: an IT management concept designed to address the escalating complexity of modern networks ...
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 ...
From growing reliance on FinOps teams to the increasing attention on artificial intelligence (AI), and software licensing, the Flexera 2025 State of the Cloud Report digs into how organizations are improving cloud spend efficiency, while tackling the complexities of emerging technologies ...