SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--PLUMgrid, Inc., a provider of network virtualization solutions for building and managing data centers, today announced that it has appointed former Dell executive Kash Iftikhar as Vice President of Sales and Business Development.
“Kash is a valuable addition to our leadership team. He will play a significant role in the next phase of PLUMgrid’s growth as we expand our customer base and roll out our products in new markets,” said Awais Nemat, Founder and CEO of PLUMgrid. “He has an exceptional track record of success in meeting customer need and contributing to business strategy and sales growth.”
Kash joins PLUMgrid from Dell, where he was head of Dell Network Sales for North America, responsible for networking sales for all market segments, including global accounts, large enterprise, public sector and federal. Kash came to Dell as a result of the acquisition of Force10 Networks. He led the integration of the networking sales organizations of Force10 and Dell. Under his leadership, the size of Dell’s networking sales team doubled within one year, attracting the industry’s best talent and achieving more than 50 percent year-over-year sales revenue growth.
Prior to the acquisition, Kash was VP of Sales for the Americas at Force10. He built the company’s sales and systems engineering teams, and diversified the business by developing a channels field organization, leading to its largest sales revenue growth. This was the culmination of a five-year career at Force10, in which he consistently achieved record sales revenues and made major contributions to Force10’s data center strategy and product direction. Before his appointment as VP of Sales for the Americas, he served as the Regional VP Sales for the West Coast, primarily focusing on Web and cloud customers.
Prior to Force10, Kash served at Cisco for seven years in lead roles in customer advocacy, sales engineering and sales management. During this time he helped design some of the largest data centers and complex enterprise networking environments for Fortune 500 companies.
“The networking industry is undergoing significant transition, and customers are demanding simple solutions to address the complexities caused by new cloud and virtualization technologies,” said Kash Iftikhar, Vice President of Sales and Business Development at PLUMgrid. “I’m excited to join PLUMgrid and to be at the heart of an industry transformation, delivering a pioneering SDN product built to solve the problems customers are facing.”
Kash holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and from UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. He earned his MS degree in Computer Engineering from Purdue University.
About PLUMgrid
PLUMgrid is a network infrastructure software vendor, selling network virtualization solutions to companies building and managing data centers. The company is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, and is backed by investors Hummer Winblad and US Venture Partners. The PLUMgrid Board of Directors includes individuals with board experience in enterprise/data center infrastructure, security, cloud, and software. For more information: http://www.plumgrid.com
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