Aryaka Hires Another Big Switch, Gigamon Alum

**Editor’s Note: Click here to see which channel people were on the move in December.**

Aryaka Networks, the software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN) provider, bolstered its expansion goals with the hiring of a new sales leader.

Aryaka’s Greg Orr

Greg Orr now serves as vice president of sales for the Americas for the San Mateo, California-based vendor. He takes charge of market efforts in the U.S., Canada, Mexico and Latin America, with plans to scale the sales organization. This is the third company where he has served in a similar role.

“Greg has a natural ability to build world-class teams with a customer-first mindset and vast experience selling to IT executives at Fortune Global 2000 companies,” said Aryaka CEO and President Shawn Farshchi. “His knowledge of the networking, security, data-center and software-defined infrastructure markets will bring tremendous value to Aryaka and our customers.”

Orr comes from Big Switch Networks, where he held an identical job title. He increased bookings in the Americas by 130 percent year-over-year during his two years at the data-center networking company. He also led Americas sales for Arkin Net in 2016. Orr spent five years with Gigamon, the networking visibility provider, finishing as vice president of sales for the West.

Orr is Aryaka’s third major hire in the last two months to have worked with Big Switch Networks and Gigamon. The new chief revenue officer and global channels leader also worked for Big Switch and Gigamon. All three employees worked for Gigamon when the company went public in 2013.

Aryaka Chief Marketing Officer Gary Sevounts told Light Reading earlier this month that Aryaka is planning for a 2019 initial public offering (IPO).

Orr described the growing need for reliable SD-WAN in Aryaka’s Thursday announcement. He says more and more C-level executives and IT leaders are looking for ways to “streamline IT infrastructure” and more quickly deploy applications.

“Aryaka’s global SD-WAN solution delivers up to 40 times faster application performance to enterprise branch and remote users, while reducing their costs by up to 70 percent, and aiding their IT consolidation and cloud-migration strategies,” Orr said. “I’m thrilled to join Aryaka at a time when the company is aggressively marching towards an [IPO].