Fuze Appoints Doherty as CEO

Fuze has appointed Colin Doherty as CEO.

With more than 25 years of industry experience, Doherty joins Fuze after 10 years of holding CEO positions at software-defined networking (SDN) leader BTI Systems and DDoS and security solutions provider Arbor Networks. Most recently, Doherty served as CEO of Dyn, a Manchester, NH-based DNS company, which was recently acquired by Oracle.

Founder and former-CEO, Steve Kokinos, will serve as executive chairman.

“We’ve experienced tremendous growth over the past few years, but as we look at the scale of the opportunity ahead of us we’re really just getting started,” said Kokinos. “To help drive the next phase of the company’s growth, we wanted to find someone with great operational experience, a proven track record of leading companies of our size through growth and successful outcomes, and most importantly, a leader who would fit the Fuze culture. We found that and more in Colin, and are excited for him to execute on our mission to build a global, cloud-communications business for enterprise customers.”

With a strong expertise in enterprise cloud, SDN and security technologies, Doherty will build on Fuze’s recent momentum and lead the company in its next chapter.

The executive leadership change comes on the heels of Fuze closing $104 million in financing led by Wellington Management Company LLP, bringing the company’s total funding to more than $300 million. The new capital will be used to advance the company’s aggressive pursuit of the market for its cloud-based business communications platform, accelerate geographic expansion to service its large global customers, and fuel product innovation.

“Fuze has witnessed tremendous success to date, and the enterprise market opportunity for cloud communications is ours to win,” said Doherty. “The latest round of funding is the fuel the company needs to fully execute on this growth mission and capitalize on a massive market opportunity. I am thrilled to join the team as we focus on execution: on the product side to stay ahead of the competition; on the business side to delight our customers; and in the back office to scale globally.”

In Q3 and Q4 2016, Fuze strengthened its executive team with the appointment of Brian Day as chief financial officer (CFO) to lead financial strategy and planning, Mary Good as chief people officer (CPO) to oversee talent acquisition and retention, Laurie Harrison as general counsel (GC) to oversee all legal and regulatory matters for Fuze worldwide, and David Johnson to lead services and support.

“This leadership team is committed to two things: building Fuze into the next great enterprise software company and completely disrupting and transforming the communications industry,” added Kokinos.


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