BitTorrent Bolsters Executive Management Team

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--BitTorrent, home to the global standard for high-quality content delivery on the Internet, today announced that Douglas Walker, former CEO of Alias Systems, will now serve as chief executive officer and Eric Klinker, former CTO of Internap, will serve as chief technology officer. Walker and Klinker join an already established management team, which has been led by BitTorrent co-founders Bram Cohen and Ashwin Navin. Walker, who will oversee BitTorrent’s day-to-day operations, brings a unique wealth of experience and impressive track record of growing a technology organization to achieve breakthrough success. BitTorrent inventor and current CEO, Bram Cohen, will assume the role of chief scientist and current president Ashwin Navin remains in his role, unchanged. Both will continue to be deeply involved in all aspects of company strategy and operations.

“When I started the company with Bram in 2004, P2P was a widely misunderstood technology but we have achieved validation that many deemed impossible, including the recruitment of world-class executives like Doug and Eric to help us capture the commercial opportunity that exists for BitTorrent”

“BitTorrent is a revolutionary company that has changed not only the world of media distribution, but is improving the very foundation of the Internet. Its technology leadership and market validation provides an exciting opportunity to apply proven business models to build a successful business,” said Douglas Walker, CEO of BitTorrent. “I look forward to working with Bram, Ashwin and the rest of the BitTorrent executive team to continue to capitalize on the unique position BitTorrent has in the enterprise, consumer and hardware markets. There’s a synergy and opportunity that no other company enjoys.”

Walker brings more than 25 years of experience in the technology industry to BitTorrent and has been a motivational leader in some of the world’s most innovative and successful technology businesses, including Silicon Graphics, Sun Microsystems, Prime Computer, and IBM. Prior to BitTorrent, Douglas served as president and CEO of Alias Systems, a dominant provider of 3D software technology to the entertainment and product design industries, and successfully led the company to its acquisition by Autodesk Corporation.

“Building scalable software is our forte, but we recognized the need for BitTorrent to scale as a company, therefore Ashwin and I spent the better part of this year looking for the right leader to continue the success we’ve demonstrated since we started the company,” said Bram Cohen, co-founder and chief scientist at BitTorrent. “In Doug, we found the right person to complement our strengths, and provide the experience, leadership and guidance to take our business to the next level.”

Also having joined BitTorrent’s management team as CTO is Eric Klinker, who brings nearly two decades of networking experience as a technologist and innovator. Eric joins BitTorrent from his previous post as CTO and Vice President of Engineering at Internap, a leading provider of network optimization and content delivery solutions. Prior to Internap, Eric was CTO and Chief Architect for netVmg, a pioneering provider of intelligent route control and bandwidth management products.

“When I started the company with Bram in 2004, P2P was a widely misunderstood technology but we have achieved validation that many deemed impossible, including the recruitment of world-class executives like Doug and Eric to help us capture the commercial opportunity that exists for BitTorrent,” said Ashwin Navin, co-founder and president. “We are especially grateful for the BitTorrent ecosystem of users, developers, and publishers that have grown with us and got us to where we are as a company and community.”

Last quarter, Mark Hopper also joined BitTorrent as the vice president and general manager of Enterprise Services at BitTorrent. Hopper brings 20 years worth of expertise in the Internet, mobile communications, video and multimedia industries. Prior to joining BitTorrent, Mark was the VP of International Solutions and Market Development at VeriSign. At VeriSign, he was responsible for the company’s market strategy and solution programs to international communication service providers to enable secure communications, commerce and content delivery.

About BitTorrent

BitTorrent is the global standard for delivering high-quality files over the Internet. Millions of users worldwide are using BitTorrent’s leading peer-assisted content delivery platform to publish, discover and download digital entertainment content quickly, easily and securely. Founded in 2004, BitTorrent is a privately held company backed by venture capital firms, Accel and DCM (formerly known as Doll Capital Management). The company is headquartered in San Francisco, California. For more information, visit www.bittorrent.com.

BitTorrent is a trademark of BitTorrent, Inc.