Key Appointments: Silver Peak Bolsters Executive Sales Leadership

SD-WAN Player Appoints Industry Veterans to Bolster Global SD-WAN Channel Program and Enterprise Sales Coverage as Company Accelerates Market Expansion

Silver Peak®, a global player in broadband and hybrid WAN solutions, today announced the executive appointments of Michael O’Brien to lead the company’s flagship Global SD-WAN Channel Program as vice president of worldwide channel sales and Doug Woodley to lead a newly created enterprise sales organization as vice president of North America enterprise sales.

In these newly created leadership assignments, O’Brien will head the Silver Peak global channel strategy and program with a primary focus on fully enabling partners and accelerating market expansion.  Woodley will focus on coverage model expansion and account development in the broader enterprise market, complementing the existing major accounts sales teams focused on Fortune 1000 enterprises.

With 20+ years of hands-on channel experience, O’Brien joins Silver Peak from Aerohive where he served as the vice president of global channels and architected a managed service program to enable partners to offer unique services to customers. Prior to Aerohive, O’Brien served as executive director of global channels and alliances at Dell where he focused on maximizing partner opportunity and satisfaction.

O'Brien joined Dell in 2011 through the Force 10 acquisition, where he served as vice president of channels and alliances. Prior to that, he served in various channel leadership roles at AMD and Sun Microsystems where he led channel transformation initiatives to tightly align partner enablement to changing market dynamics and customer requirements.

“After two decades of establishing and leading channel programs for market leading technology vendors, I see enormous opportunity and momentum surrounding the global SD-WAN market and the potential to equip partners with the enablement tools and resources required to capitalize on an unprecedented opportunity,” said Michael O’Brien, vice president of worldwide channel sales at Silver Peak. “Looking forward, the Silver Peak channel team will focus on increasing channel partner enablement and traction to accelerate the company’s global expansion with current and prospective customers in alignment with our vision to deliver the industry’s only business-first SD-WAN solution.”

With over 20+ years of executive sales leadership experience in high tech, Woodley joins Silver Peak from Check Point Software Technologies where he served as regional vice president of sales for nearly 10 years, leading the company’s North American sales teams. During that time, Woodley was a key driver in building and scaling out the sales teams to include expanded territory models, government verticals and global/strategic account teams, resulting in regional revenues tripling. Prior to Check Point, Woodley served in sales and channel leadership positions at iPass where he led the channel, technology alliances and inside sales teams, achieving more than 6x revenue growth between 2001 and 2004. Prior to that, he served in various sales leadership roles at UUNET and CompuServe.

“It’s truly an exciting time to join the Silver Peak sales leadership team as the SD-WAN market transcends a strategic inflection point, rapidly shifting from early adoption to early majority market acceptance,” said Doug Woodley, vice president of North American enterprise sales at Silver Peak. “In close collaboration with the channel sales teams and our partners, we plan to expand our sales coverage model to collectively address the most pressing WAN challenges facing distributed enterprises as they embrace cloud initiatives and charge toward mainstream SD-WAN adoption.”

“As Silver Peak enters its next phase of market growth and expansion, we are doubling down on scaling our internal sales teams and commitment to providing channel partners with the resources and materials required to fully capitalize on the burgeoning addressable market for SD-WAN,” said Chris Helfer, senior vice president of worldwide sales at Silver Peak. “Both Michael O’Brien and Doug Woodley bring the optimal balance of proven expertise and sales leadership to Silver Peak and will drive channel and enterprise sales, including partner enablement to new heights as we solidify our position as the undisputed leader in the SD-WAN market.”