F5 Networks Nabs Cisco Veteran For Top Security Post

Manny Rivelo, a 19-year Cisco veteran and most recently Cisco's senior vice president, engineering operations and systems, will have the title of senior vice president, security and strategic solutions at F5, reporting to John McAdam, F5's president and CEO.

Rivelo's move to F5 coincides with a milestone period in the company's history, as F5 recently passed $1 billion in revenue for its fiscal 2011 and boasts one of the most enthusiastic solution provider communities in the channel.

McAdam said Rivelo will head up F5's deeper expansion into the security market, which F5 executives have been touting all year as a natural move beyond F5's application delivery and data center strongholds.

"We are very pleased to have Manny on our team here at F5," McAdam said in a statement. "He brings to F5 a strong record of success, a keen business sense, deep engineering and operations experience, and a customer-focused mind-set. I’m confident that Manny will help accelerate F5’s expansion into the security market and take advantage of the many new strategic opportunities we are encountering, leveraging the success of our core ADC market solutions."

According to his Cisco bio, Rivelo ran the daily operations and global business framework and strategy supporting 24,000 Cisco engineers in 30 worldwide development centers. His jump to F5 is the latest instance of what's become an executive exodus out of Cisco, as the networking titan undergoes a global restructuring in an effort to make its sales and operations less cumbersome.

Rivelo and F5 Networks were not immediately available for comment.