PacketFabric, an innovator in fast, adjustable-on-demand connectivity for enterprise customers and a portfolio company of Digital Alpha Advisors, recently announced that Dave Ward will be joining the company as Chief Executive Officer. Dave joins PacketFabric from Cisco, where he was the company’s Chief Technology Officer of Engineering, Chief Architect and Senior Vice President for Cisco’s Networking and Security Business.
“Dave is an industry luminary and one of the very few ‘Big Internet’ architectural systems thinkers, and we are fortunate to attract him to PacketFabric. He brings unmatched networking and telecommunications expertise, business acumen and senior industry relationships,” comments Digital Alpha Managing Partner Rick Shrotri. “Under Dave’s guidance, I am even more excited about PacketFabric’s growth potential. We believe Dave is the right leader to transform the industry with PacketFabric.”
Dave brings an impressive breadth and depth of experience, as well as strategic industry relationships, to PacketFabric. Dave joined Cisco in 1999 when the company acquired the Internet Engineering Group. He is also one of two individuals to be both Cisco and Juniper Fellows working on the operating system and next-generation routing systems, including ASICS, Optics, and network APIs and SDN. In the past, Dave led Cisco’s core innovation programs, unifying and advancing strategic co-innovation partnerships and programs with internal business units and external customers, partners, governments, developers, academia, standards and open-source groups.
These co-innovation programs reinvented and enhanced the Internet’s capabilities, creating new offerings and technologies both inside and outside Cisco’s existing product portfolio. Dave and his engineering teams built numerous hardware and software products. These include networking orchestration and automation, virtualized and cloud-native services, cloud networking and security products, 5G networking and system architectures and IoT-based solutions for smart cities, healthcare, conservation, media and entertainment. Dave also led architectural governance, technology strategy and development and university research.
This experience and foundation of relationships throughout the industry will benefit PacketFabric as it expands into new products and markets through partnerships and joint ventures.
“I could not be more excited to join PacketFabric at this critical juncture in the company’s trajectory. During a career spanning over two decades in the telecommunications and networking sectors, I’ve been privileged to drive innovation for Cisco Systems and Juniper Networks,” states Dave. “PacketFabric is fundamentally rethinking enterprise and service communications in a way that others have not. I’ve been very impressed with PacketFabric’s technology, go-to-market and business models, strong customer feedback and unique talent. I believe PacketFabric can lead and positively disrupt the next phase of transformation for the networking industry. I’m honored and excited to lead the company at this critical time in Internet history.”
Dave holds hundreds of patents, and his innovative advances and industry leadership related to Software-Defined Networks (SDN), Cloud Networking and Network Function Virtualization has spearheaded the formation and progress of numerous open-source, networking and standards organizations. He has been a catalyst in the movement of the networking industry into Open Source, leading the major projects that are now foundational in the industry. He has served on the Boards of the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions, the Advanced Imaging Society, the Linux Foundation, the Linux Foundation Networking, the ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector, Governmental Advisory boards and the Open Networking Foundation.
For more information about PacketFabric, please visit www.packetfabric.com.
