Riverbed appoints former Zscaler ANZ country manager

Riverbed Technology has announced the new appointment of Sean Kopelke.

Holding the job title of solutions engineering vice president for Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ), Kopelke will be charged with leading the region's sales engineering team as well as building and executing a long-term growth strategy for the company – which includes deepening and expanding its own technology expertise in close collaboration with partners and customers.

"Riverbed is executing on its multi-year strategy to lead in digital performance, with our platform having become an essential component of some of our customers' most critical digital business transformation initiatives," says Riverbed Technology APJ senior vice president Bjorn Engelhardt.

"Sean's appointment to this important role couldn't be better timed. His deep understanding of the region's cloud and SaaS markets and the challenges our customers in the region face, and his strong experience working closely with organisations on their strategic cloud initiatives are well aligned to our performance strategy. Sean and his team will play a fundamental role in building our technical capabilities to achieve both near and long-term growth goals.

Kopelke has more than 20 years of experience within the industry with his last role at cloud security provider ZScaler where he was country manager for Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) and responsible for defining and executing the go-to-market strategy.

He has also served as FireEye APJ managed service provider director where he built and executed a strategy to target and develop tech partnerships, as well as multiple senior roles at Symantec that include senior director of sales engineering in ANZ and director of emerging technology in APJ.

"As organisations continue to embrace digital as core to their future, the ability to measure the digital experience and modernize networks has become critical to their success. I am excited to be joining Riverbed at a pivotal stage in its growth story to lead the region's sales engineering team in what I'm confident will be a watershed next few years for digital performance," says Kopelke.

"Riverbed customers are just beginning to rethink what's possible for their businesses, and I'm looking forward to working closely with them – as well as the broader Riverbed partner ecosystem – to envision new digital experiences, and to help them stay ahead of the next wave of change.

Kopelke will be based in Sydney, Australia.