Juniper Names New CEO

Juniper Networks has named Shaygan Kheradpir as its new CEO, effective January 1, 2014. He replaces Kevin Johnson, who announced his retirement in July. (See Juniper Eyes SDN Sales, CEO Steps Down.)

Kheradpir is joining from Barclays Bank, where he is chief operations and technology officer. Previously, he was chief information and technology officer at Verizon Communications Inc., where Tony Melone stepped into his shoes in 2010. (See Melone Takes Over as Verizon CTO.)

Kheradpir will join Juniper Networks Inc. at a key moment in the battle to win the hearts and minds of the many networking decision-makers who are trying to figure out how software-defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualization (NFV) might benefit their operations and business plans.

Juniper's current message is that it has a more open approach than its main rival Cisco Systems Inc., although the market is much more than a two-horse race. (See SDN Middleman: A Second Look at Juniper's MetaFabric, Cisco's ACI Gets Physical With SDN and Cisco Asks the Killer SDN Question.)

For more on Juniper:

— Ray Le Maistre, Editor-in-Chief, Light Reading