Ben Gibson CMO, F5 Networks

F5 Networks, Inc. added of Ben Gibson to its executive team as CMO and EVP, reporting to the CEO.

He will be responsible for overseeing the company’s global marketing strategy as F5 further expands into the growth areas of application security and cloud application deployment.

He will start on Monday, August 1, and be based in F5’s San Jose, CA office.

“As we continue to expand our portfolio, we need an accomplished marketer who understands the evolving needs of the traditional data center customer we have worked with for two decades, as well as new buyers in emerging markets such as security and cloud,” said John McAdam, president and CEO. “Ben’s strong industry and marketing expertise, in partnership with sales and product leadership, will position F5 well to take advantage of the growing demand for application services anywhere, any time, and from any device.”

Gibson brings to F5 over 25 years of management experience in product, field, and channel marketing, as well as advertising, digital strategy, and corporate communications. Most recently, he was CMO at Veritas, where he led a global team of marketing professionals and spearheaded that company’s rebranding efforts following a spin-off from Symantec. Prior to Veritas, he spent five years as CMO at Aruba Networks. During his tenure, Aruba doubled in annual revenue as it expanded from wireless networking into adjacent mobile security and location services.

“I’m a big believer in the role of marketing to anticipate new market trends and buyer behaviors. This role is particularly critical as IT organizations are going through a significant demographic shift with decreasing technology specialization and increasing focus on services and development,” said Gibson. “I’m thrilled to join F5, a company that understands how critical these shifts in how we build, market, and sell are to long-term growth.”

Before joining Aruba, Gibson spent five years at Cisco Systems, most recently as VP of data center/virtualization marketing, where he ran the outbound marketing strategy and execution for a number of Cisco’s application networking products. He has also held leadership roles in product marketing at Meru Networks and Proxim Corporation.

He has a B.A. in Journalism from California State University, Long Beach.