Pertino Adds New Sales Head as Cloud Networking Launches

Just as the company announced general availability of its software-defined networking (SDN)-powered cloud networking service, Pertino also expanded its executive team with the hiring of both a vice president of Product and a vice president of Inside Sales.

Pertino is an SDN-focused vendor with an eye toward cloud networking services. In the works for a while, its new Cloud Network Engine was designed to help small and medium businesses (SMBs) replace their traditional VPN and network appliances with cloud-based services. Pertino also promises easy deployment that takes no more than “a few clicks.”

The new hires will play a role in developing both the product, as well as its sales.

Ritch Haselden joins the company as the new vice president of Inside Sales. According to his bio, Haselden has more than 15 years of experience in building sales organizations within a variety of organizations. Previously, Haselden was vice president of Sales at ResponseLINK, a provider of consumer healthcare-related services.

Prior to ResponseLINK, he was vice president of Sales and general manager at Rainmaker Systems, an IT contract management company. And before that, he was co-founder and president of GolfNow, which provides golf course marketing services and was eventually acquired by NBC Sports.

In addition to Haselden, Pertino hired Bharath Rangarajan as its vice president of Product. Rangarajan has more than 10 years of experience in product management in software as a service, cloud, mobile and data management technologies. Prior to joining Pertino, Rangarajan held senior roles at Citrix, Cisco Systems, GemStone Systems and Candle Corp.

“Our Cloud Network Engine has evolved significantly during public beta. Today, we have a business-ready cloud networking service that reaches across four continents, supports all modern computing platforms with Android in beta and iOS on the way, and we’ve introduced the first set of apps for our AppScape network services app store,” said Craig Elliott, CEO and co-founder of Pertino, in a prepared statement. “Bharath and Ritch bring proven talents that will be instrumental to building on our early product leadership in SDN-powered cloud networking and revving-up sales.”

What this might mean for the channel is unknown. Pertino isn’t a channel-focused company currently, but with the general availability launch of its cloud networking service and the hiring of a new sales lead, it doesn’t seem far-fetched to believe the company is at least considering creating a channel presence.