SD-WAN Provider Talari Hires SonicWall VP as New CEO

Former SonicWall executive Patrick Sweeney replaces Mark Masur as CEO of SD-WAN vendor Talari Networks.

Kelsey Ziser, Senior Editor

November 21, 2017

2 Min Read
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SD-WAN supplier Talari Networks has hired former SonicWall executive Patrick Sweeney as CEO, replacing former CEO Mark Masur.

Masur has served on Talari's board of directors since 2010 and will continue to serve as chairman of the board.

Sweeney held a number of executive roles in his 16 years at network security company SonicWall, most recently as VP of marketing and product management, and helped take the company private under Thoma Bravo in 2010. SonicWall Inc. (Nasdaq: SNWL) was later sold to Dell in 2012. In 2016, Francisco Partners, a private equity firm, and Elliott Management acquired Dell Software Group for $2 billion, according to Reuters , and transitioned SonicWall to an independent security company. (See Rapid SD-WAN Momentum Spurs Talari’s Appointment of New CEO from SonicWall.)

"What attracted us to Patrick was his wide-reaching experience that spans across all aspects of high tech company operations," said Masur in the announcement. "His strong track record demonstrates he possesses the leadership capabilities to execute within fast-moving market transitions. As the company grows, and expands its partnerships and solution offerings, Patrick will bring an invigorated sense of purpose that will support and enhance our original vision."

Figure 1: Patrick Sweeney, CEO of Talari Networks. Photo courtesy of Talari Networks. Patrick Sweeney, CEO of Talari Networks. Photo courtesy of Talari Networks.

Talari Networks has historically pursued a channel model -- opting to partner with value-added resellers and systems integrators, such as integrator LightEdge Solutions Inc. and Tech Data Corp. (Nasdaq: TECD), one of the largest IT distributors in the market.

"We will accelerate our success by increasing our sales capacity, implementing a 100% channel model, and continuing to lead with SD-WAN technical innovations in cloud, mobility and the distributed workforce," said Sweeney in the press release.

Atchison Frazer, head of worldwide marketing for Talari Networks, told Light Reading in an interview that Talari targets enterprise customers that don't necessarily want to work with a service provider for SD-WAN but want to maintain their investments in legacy equipment and MPLS -- with added redundancy and reliability. (SD-WAN Supplier Talari Targets Carrier-Leery Enterprises.)

"They're looking at: 'Well wait a minute, LTE out there is pretty good right now and commodity Internet pretty decent. Maybe my problem isn't my legacy equipment, it's how I'm actually connecting everything,' " said Frazer.

Talari has over 400 enterprise and public sector customers in 40 countries, and more than 9,000 SD-WAN endpoints.

According to IHS Markit, "global SD-WAN hardware and software revenue is forecast to reach $3.3 billion by 2021."

— Kelsey Kusterer Ziser, Senior Editor, Light Reading

About the Author

Kelsey Ziser

Senior Editor, Light Reading

Kelsey is a senior editor at Light Reading, co-host of the Light Reading podcast, and host of the "What's the story?" podcast.

Her interest in the telecom world started with a PR position at Connect2 Communications, which led to a communications role at the FREEDM Systems Center, a smart grid research lab at N.C. State University. There, she orchestrated their webinar program across college campuses and covered research projects such as the center's smart solid-state transformer.

Kelsey enjoys reading four (or 12) books at once, watching movies about space travel, crafting and (hoarding) houseplants.

Kelsey is based in Raleigh, N.C.

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