F5 Names Mike Convertino as Chief Information Security Officer

Security leader brings decades of cybersecurity experience at CrowdStrike, Microsoft, and the U.S. Air Force to F5

SEATTLE--()--F5 Networks (NASDAQ:FFIV) today announced the hire of Mike Convertino to lead its Information Security team. As the company’s first Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), Convertino’s first priority is the continued protection of company and customer assets and data. He will also play a lead role in the development of F5’s security product roadmap and represent F5 in the IT industry and wider security community. Convertino started on January 18 and is based in Seattle at F5’s headquarters.

“With our focus on application access, F5 holds a unique vantage point on security,” said Tony Bozzuti, senior vice president and chief information officer at F5. “We see the enormous risk applications are exposed to as users and data travel from device to data center and back again. What Mike Convertino brings to F5 is both deep experience and strong leadership to help our own operations, our partners, and our customers take the best advantage of our application-level security.”

Convertino brings to F5 nearly 30 years of experience in providing enterprise-level information security, cloud-grade information systems solutions, and advanced cyber capability development. His professional experience spans security leadership and product development at a wide array of organizations including the U.S. government, Fortune 500 companies, and security start-ups. Prior to joining F5, Convertino was previously the Chief Information Security Officer at CrowdStrike, where he was responsible for the security of both CrowdStrike’s corporate network and its product platform. He established the CrowdStrike Security Operations Center and developed new security technologies to meld the best of traditional IT security with the latest security in DevOps models for cloud environments.

Before CrowdStrike, Convertino was the senior director of network security at Microsoft, where he was responsible for protecting the company’s networks from intrusion and exploitation. In this role, he was responsible for leading a team of digital forensic professionals maintaining internal Microsoft security policies, as well as an extensive intrusion detection and security engineering team.

Prior to his work at Microsoft, Convertino was a Colonel in the U.S. Air Force responsible for a unit of over 600 telecommunications, computer, signals intelligence, and information operations personnel, developing cyber capabilities for the Department of Defense. During his time in service, he served both as a Squadron and Group Commander and on the Joint Staff in the Pentagon.

Convertino holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering (BSEE) and Master’s degrees in Management Information Systems from Webster University and in International Security Studies from the U.S. Air Force. He has been a featured industry and government speaker at DoD Cybercrime, GFIRST, RSA, Black Hat and DEFCON, and U.S. Attorney’s Office conferences on topics in risk management, intrusion detection, and cyber policy.

ABOUT F5

F5 (NASDAQ: FFIV) provides solutions for an application world. F5 helps organizations seamlessly scale cloud, data center, telecommunications, and software defined networking (SDN) deployments to successfully deliver applications and services to anyone, anywhere, at any time. F5 solutions broaden the reach of IT through an open, extensible framework and a rich partner ecosystem of leading technology and orchestration vendors. This approach lets customers pursue the infrastructure model that best fits their needs over time. The world’s largest businesses, service providers, government entities, and consumer brands rely on F5 to stay ahead of cloud, security, and mobility trends. For more information, go to f5.com.

You can also follow @f5networks on Twitter or visit us on LinkedIn and Facebook for more information about F5, its partners, and technologies.

F5 and BIG-IP are trademarks or service marks of F5 Networks, Inc., in the U.S. and other countries. All other product and company names herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.

This press release may contain forward looking statements relating to future events or future financial performance that involve risks and uncertainties. Such statements can be identified by terminology such as "may," "will," "should," "expects," "plans," "anticipates," "believes," "estimates," "predicts," "potential," or "continue," or the negative of such terms or comparable terms. These statements are only predictions and actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these statements based upon a number of factors including those identified in the company's filings with the SEC.

Contacts

F5 Networks
Nathan Misner, 206-272-7494
n.misner@f5.com
or
WE Communications
Holly Luka, 415-547-7054
hluka@we-worldwide.com

Contacts

F5 Networks
Nathan Misner, 206-272-7494
n.misner@f5.com
or
WE Communications
Holly Luka, 415-547-7054
hluka@we-worldwide.com