Manuel Rivelo Resigns from the Company
Alan Higginson Named Non-Executive Chairman
F5 Networks, Inc. (“F5” or the “Company”) (NASDAQ:FFIV), a global leader
in Application Delivery Networking (ADN) technology, today announced
that John McAdam, Chairman of the F5 Board of Directors, has been
appointed President and Chief Executive Officer. Mr. McAdam joined F5 in
July 2000, and served as the Company’s President and Chief Executive
Officer until his retirement in July 2015. In connection with this
appointment, Mr. McAdam will remain a member of the F5 Board but will
step down as Chairman in order to focus on his executive duties and
actively lead the Company forward. Alan Higginson, who currently serves
as F5’s Lead Independent Director, has been appointed Non-Executive
Chairman of the Board. All actions are effective immediately.
Mr. McAdam succeeds Manuel Rivelo who has resigned from his position of
President and Chief Executive Officer, and as a member of the F5 Board
of Directors, for matters regarding personal conduct unrelated to the
operations or financials of the Company.
“The Board believes John is best suited to lead the Company as F5
continues its evolution to expand our offerings and grow across our
product suite. As a longtime F5 executive, John has a deep understanding
of our business, operations and strategy, and an appreciation for the
hard work and dedication of our employees,” said Mr. Higginson. “The
Board is confident his 15-years of leadership experience at F5 will
allow him to seamlessly take on the responsibilities of President and
CEO, and looks forward to his immediate contributions.”
Mr. McAdam said, “I look forward to immediately re-engaging on a day to
day basis with F5’s dedicated and passionate team of employees as we
further our mission to help clients deliver the most secure, fast and
reliable applications to anyone, anywhere, at any time. I am excited
about the opportunities F5 has before it in new hybrid cloud
architectures, application security and to capitalize on emerging
technology trends. I would like to add that the Board of Directors and
the executive leadership team remain fully committed to the strategy and
financial targets we articulated in our earnings announcement on October
28, 2015.”
Mr. McAdam continued, “I want to thank Manny for his many contributions
to F5 over the past four years. Manny has been a key member of F5’s
strong leadership team who have developed our current strategy.”
Mr. Higginson added, “I want to emphasize that these actions are in no
way related to the Company’s operating performance or financial
condition. This change in management, while unexpected, is strictly
related to personal conduct matters. We are confident that F5 will be in
good hands with John leading the Company forward.”
While Mr. McAdam leads F5 as President and CEO, the Board will undertake
a formal search process to identify a permanent successor.
About John McAdam
John McAdam has served as Chairman of F5’s Board of Directors since July
2015, upon retiring as President and Chief Executive Officer. Shortly
after joining F5 in July 2000, Mr. McAdam successfully navigated the
Company through the turbulent post-dot-com era, bringing F5 to
profitability and positioning it for further growth. During his tenure
at F5, Mr. McAdam grew the Company’s annual revenue from $108.6 million
to more than $1.9 billion in fiscal year 2015. He oversaw numerous
successful acquisitions, guiding F5 into new and adjacent markets that
enhance the Company’s core application delivery solution offerings.
Under Mr. McAdam’s leadership, F5 was added to the S&P 500—one of the
world’s most widely followed stock market indices.
Mr. McAdam has also received numerous leadership awards, among them
Puget Sound Business Journal’s 2013 Executive of the Year, Seattle
Business Magazine’s 2012 Lifetime Achievement Award, and Best in
Business Awards’ 2012 Executive of the Year, silver category. He was
also named to Business Insider’s 2013 list of 50 Most Powerful People in
Enterprise Tech and CRN’s list of Top 25 Innovators for 2012.
Prior to joining F5, Mr. McAdam served as General Manager of the Web
server sales business at IBM. From January 1995 until August 1999, he
was President and Chief Operating Officer of Sequent Computer Systems, a
manufacturer of high-end open systems, which was sold to IBM in
September 1999.
Mr. McAdam serves on the Board of Directors of Tableau Software, Nutanix
and Apptio. He holds a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of
Glasgow, Scotland.
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 Silverline 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.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements including, among
other things, statements regarding management and Board changes, the
continuing strength and momentum of F5's business, F5’s outlook
(including strategic and financial targets), future financial
performance and results, sequential growth, projected revenues including
target revenue and earnings ranges, income, earnings per share, share
amount and share price assumptions, demand for application delivery
networking, application delivery services, security, virtualization and
diameter products, expectations regarding future services and products,
expectations regarding future customers, markets and the benefits of
products, and other statements that are not historical facts and which
are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are
subject to the safe harbor provisions created by the Private Securities
Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual performance and results could
differ materially from those expected in the forward-looking statements
as a result of certain risk factors. Such forward-looking statements
involve risks and uncertainties, as well as assumptions and other
factors that, if they do not fully materialize or prove correct, could
cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company, or
industry results, to be materially different from any future results,
performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking
statements. Such factors include, but are not limited to: timing and
integration of management and Board changes (and related arrangements);
customer acceptance of our new traffic management, security, application
delivery, optimization, diameter and virtualization offerings; the
timely development, introduction and acceptance of additional new
products and features by F5 or its competitors; competitive factors,
including but not limited to pricing pressures, industry consolidation,
entry of new competitors into F5’s markets, and new product and
marketing initiatives by our competitors; increased sales discounts;
uncertain global economic conditions which may result in reduced
customer demand for our products and services and changes in customer
payment patterns; global economic conditions and uncertainties in the
geopolitical environment; overall information technology spending;
litigation involving patents, intellectual property, shareholder and
other matters, and governmental investigations; natural catastrophic
events; a pandemic or an epidemic; F5's ability to sustain, develop and
effectively utilize distribution relationships; F5's ability to attract,
train and retain qualified product development, marketing, sales,
professional services and customer support personnel; F5's ability to
expand in international markets; the unpredictability of F5's sales
cycle; F5’s share repurchase program; future prices of F5's common
stock; and other risks and uncertainties described more fully in our
documents filed with or furnished to the Securities and Exchange
Commission (the ”SEC”), including our most recent report on Form 10-K
and other reports and documents that we file from time to time with the
SEC, which could cause actual results, performance or achievements of
the Company to vary from expectations. The financial information
contained in this release should be read in conjunction with the
consolidated financial statements and notes thereto included in F5’s
most recent reports on Form 10-K and Form 10-Q, as may be amended from
time to time. All forward-looking statements in this press release are
based on information available as of the date hereof and qualified in
their entirety by this cautionary statement. F5 assumes no obligation to
revise or update these forward-looking statements.
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