LOS GATOS, Calif. -- Pertino, a company reinventing networking for the cloud era, today announced the appointment of the heads of inside sales and product as its cloud networking service enters general availability worldwide. Pertino’s Cloud Network Engine helps SMBs “unbox” their networks by replacing traditional VPN and network appliances with cloud-based services that can be deployed in a few clicks. Since launching public beta early last year, more than 5,000 customers have created free or paid Pertino cloud networks. To build on this momentum and early market leadership, Pertino hired two proven executives — Bharath Rangarajan as vice president of product and Ritch Haselden as vice president of inside sales.

“Our Cloud Network Engine has evolved significantly during public beta. Today we have a business-ready cloud networking service that reaches across four continents, supports all modern computing platforms with Android in beta and iOS on the way, and we’ve introduced the first set of apps for our AppScape network services app store,” said Craig Elliott, CEO and co-founder of Pertino. “Bharath and Ritch bring proven talents that will be instrumental to building on our early product leadership in SDN-powered cloud networking and revving-up sales.”

Bharath Rangarajan comes to Pertino with more than 10 years of product leadership experience spanning SaaS, cloud, mobile, and data management technologies. Prior to joining Pertino, Rangarajan served as senior director of product management at Citrix Systems, where he was responsible for the product strategy, roadmap, and adoption of Citrix’s enterprise mobility and end-user computing solution. He also held senior positions with WebEx (Cisco Systems), GemStone Systems (acquired by VMware in 2010), and Candle Corporation (acquired by IBM Corp in 2004).

Ritch Haselden brings more than 15 years of experience in building high-performance, transactional sales organizations for both B2C and B2B companies. Most recently, Haselden served as vice president of sales at ResponseLINK, a leader in consumer healthcare-related services. Previously, he was vice president of sales and general manager at Rainmaker Systems, a leader in IT contract management, and the co-founder and president of GolfNow, a provider of golf course marketing services that was acquired by NBC Sports.

Pertino