Josh Leslie, formerly Cumulus vice president of sales, takes over for founder JR Rivers. Rivers becomes CTO, and says transition was his idea with board approval.
Current CTO and co-founder Nolan Leake will still be involved in the company’s technical direction, working with Rivers, Rivers said.
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Leslie is an 18-year veteran of the technology industry. He was vice president of sales at Cumulus for less than a year but is credited by the company for doubling the Cumulus customer base and expanding its footprint within the Fortune 100.
Prior to joining Cumulus, Leslie ran worldwide field operations at Instart Logic where he was responsible for signing the company’s first 150 enterprise customers. He also spent six years at VMware where he held roles in sales, operations and business development as the company grew from $100 million to $1 billion in revenue.
“I work with Josh every day, and through those interactions, I came to realize that he is the ideal person to lead Cumulus Networks,” Rivers said in a statement. “Having Josh as the helm will allow me to focus completely on my passion: technology and products that customers love.”
Cumulus has landed more than 400 customers since it was founded in 2010. Cumulus Linux runs on more than 30 hardware platforms, including those from Dell, HPE and Mellanox, and has partnerships with those companies and several others.
Cumulus has raised $86 million from 11 investors, according to Cruchbase. Its latest funding round was $35 million in January.
The Cumulus board is conducting a search for a new vice president of sales.