SolarWinds names Sudhakar Ramakrishna as President and CEO, member of Board of Directors
SolarWinds and its Board of Directors have named Sudhakar Ramakrishna as the company’s new President and Chief Executive Officer and a member of the Board of Directors, each to become effective on January 4, 2021.
“Following an extensive and thorough search, we are delighted to welcome Sudhakar Ramakrishna as SolarWinds’ new CEO as we embark on an exciting new chapter in the company’s history,” said Bill Bock, Chairman of the Board of SolarWinds.
“Sudhakar is a proven leader and has significant experience leading and scaling world-class, global technology organizations. His deep expertise in strategic planning and execution, organizational development and product strategy will be especially beneficial and, when teamed with the seasoned SolarWinds leadership team, will provide strong and experienced executive leadership for the future of SolarWinds”.
Bock continued, “We would also like to thank Kevin Thompson for his many years of service to SolarWinds. Under his guidance, SolarWinds has grown into a leader in IT infrastructure management with a portfolio of products designed to meet the real world needs of IT professionals who manage today’s complex IT environments.
“He has been instrumental in helping build a company with a differentiated financial profile, strong discipline and a close connection with the IT Pro, DevOps and MSP communities. SolarWinds is well positioned, thanks to his long-time leadership and dedication.”
“SolarWinds is at the forefront of enabling customers to manage complex IT environments with simple and integrated solutions. I am honored to have the opportunity to work with the excellent team at SolarWinds to accelerate our focus on customer success, as we deliver solutions to serve the emerging needs of IT, Application and Security professionals even as they adapt to an increasingly hybrid world,” said Sudhakar Ramakrishna.
Sudhakar Ramakrishna is an experienced, global technology leader with nearly 25 years of experience across cloud, mobility, networking, security and collaboration markets.
He most recently served as the CEO of Pulse Secure, a privately-held provider of secure and zero trust access solutions for Hybrid IT environments, where he was responsible for all aspects of business strategy and execution.
Prior to Pulse Secure, Mr. Ramakrishna served as the Senior Vice President and General Manager for the Enterprise and Service Provider Division at Citrix, where he had responsibility for Citrix’s portfolio of virtualization, cloud networking, mobile platforms and cloud services solutions.
Mr. Ramakrishna also has held senior leadership roles at Polycom, Motorola, Stoke, 3Com and U.S. Robotics. Mr. Ramakrishna earned a master’s degree in computer science from Kansas State University and a master’s of management degree from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.
As the company continues to pursue its strategic objectives, SolarWinds is pleased to announce the diversification of its shareholders base with an approximately $315 million secondary investment from Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments), a professional investment organization.
Following closing, CPP Investments’ ownership in SolarWinds will be approximately 5% and the position was acquired through the acquisition of a portion of the existing stake owned by Silver Lake, Thoma Bravo and their respective co-investors.