Big Switch Names Ex Juniper Exec as New Global Sales Chief

Bare metal SDN provider Big Switch Networks has named Shaun Page, a former Juniper (JNPR) executive, as its new Worldwide Sales vice president, a slot the company called “pivotal.”

Page, a 13-year former Juniper veteran, has big portions on his plate—he’s tasked with strengthening the company’s SDN sales in key North American markets, building out its partner ecosystem and gaining a toehold in Asia and European markets.

His hiring follows earlier Big Switch executive suite appointments in the past year, including Douglas Murray as chief executive, Jeffrey Wang as Engineering vice president, Prashant Gandhi as Product Management and Strategy vice president, and Joe Palazola as Worldwide Operations and Support vice president.

Big Switch also poached Juniper’s ranks to hire Murray last November.

Murray said Page’s hiring is key to the company’s directive to expand the depth and breadth of its SDN footprint. “Shaun has a track record of success across verticals and continents,” he said. “He joins the company at critical time as we accelerate growth and drive adoption of SDN globally. I am thrilled to have Shaun on the team.”

softPage seems well-suited for the tasks at hand. While at Juniper, where he most recently served as Strategic Accounts vice president, he held a variety of sales and alliance roles, establishing and leading high-growth teams in the United States, Asia and Europe and managing enterprise, hyper-scale and service provider accounts.

“I’ve had the opportunity to work with customers who run some of the largest networks in the world and, from their vantage point, this industry is rapidly moving to a landscape dominated by bare metal ethernet hardware and SDN software,” he said. “When I learned of Big Switch’s strategy around bare metal switching hardware and SDN, I realized this company is a game changer. We can truly revolutionize the economics of data center networking.”

Considering that Big Switch’s boss and top sales executive both command Asia Pacific sales experience, it will be interesting to see how fast the vendor ramps up its sales in that region.