BTI Names Former Arbor Boss as CEO

BTI Systems has named named Colin Doherty, a 25-year-global telecom industry veteran who formerly headed up Arbor Networks, as its new CEO.

BTI, which makes SDN-enabled multiservice transport systems and software that's commonly used in data center interconnect networks, is looking to Doherty to lead the company "during its next stage of rapid customer and revenue expansion." (See BTI Names New CEO.)

Former CEO Steve Waszak, who led the company since 2010, left the company "for personal reasons," according to the statement.

BTI is "experiencing the best growth and performance in the company's history," board chairman Neil Ferris says in the BTI statement. Customers include Equinix, Digital Realty, and VK. Compound annual revenue growth was 33 percent between 2007 and 2013, "with more than 40 percent of revenues coming from top-tier content, colocation and service providers, and doubling revenue growth in the Asia-Pacific region," BTI says.

Figure 1: BTI's New CEO Colin Doherty

Industry changes are helping to fuel BTI growth, the company says:

Doherty was named CEO at Arbor Networks in 2009, guiding that company through its acquisition by Danaher in 2010. Last year, Arbor acquired Packetloop. Previously, Doherty was VP for worldwide sales at Arbor, CEO of Mangrove Systems, and held senior management, sales, and operations positions with NMS Communications and Nortel Networks.

BTI has raised $60 million in funding since 2011, including $27 million in a round closed in December. Investors include Bain Capital Ventures, BDC, Covington Capital, and GrowthWorks. (See BTI Raises Cash, Embraces SDN.)

BTI recently made other changes to its executive team. It added Tod Nielsen, former VMware co-president and current Heroku CEO, to its board. The company named Ken Taylor from March Communications as CFO, and Tim Nolette from Crossbeam Systems as senior vice president of global operations.

Taylor has public listing experience, and his appointment in August led Light Reading to speculate the company was planning an IPO. BTI was non-committal. (See Is BTI Heading for an IPO?)

Speculation that BTI was set to unveil IPO plans flared up again during the recent OFC conference in San Francisco, but a company source told Light Reading that the company was nowhere near that stage.

BTI was a finalist in the Company of the Year (Private) category of the Leading Lights awards, but Guavus Inc. won the trophy. (See Light Reading Announces 2013 Leading Lights Winners and 2013 Leading Lights Finalists: Company of the Year (Private).)

— Mitch Wagner, , West Coast Bureau Chief, Light Reading. Got a tip about SDN or NFV? Send it to [email protected].

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Big Telecom Event (BTE), which will take place on June 17 and 18 at the Sheraton Chicago Hotel and Towers. The event combines the educational power of interactive conference sessions devised and hosted by Heavy Reading's experienced industry analysts with multi-vendor interoperability and proof-of-concept networking and application showcases. For more on the event, the topics, and the stellar service provider speaker lineup, see Telecommunication Luminaries to Discuss the Hottest Industry Trends at Light Reading's Big Telecom Event in June.