Cisco shakeup: Networking chief Todd Nightingale to helm Fastly

Cisco’s networking organization is getting a shake-up as its Enterprise Networking and Cloud business chief Todd Nightingale is leaving to become CEO of cloud content-delivery company Fastly.

Nightingale has been with Cisco since 2012, coming over in the company’s acquisition of Meraki and has been a key driver to “Merakify” Cisco’s multi-billion dollar enterprise portfolios. That is to say Meraki’s technology has a reputation for being easy to use and manage and Cisco is now moving toward making that strategy a core part of its high-end enterprise hardware and software strategy.

An example of this strategy is the recently announced roadmap for the convergence of Cisco’s core Catalyst infrastructure products  with the Meraki cloud-based platform. In addition, Meraki SD-WAN technology is at the core of Cisco’s new turnkey SASE subscription service called Cisco+ Secure Connect Now. That package includes integrated branch connectivity, security, management, orchestration, and automation support manageable via a single dashboard.

Cisco praised Nightingale and wished him well in his new endeavor stating:

“At Cisco, we always want the best for our teams, our people, and their continued growth in their careers. We are grateful for Todd’s many contributions to Cisco and congratulate him as he takes on a new opportunity as a CEO of another company in an adjacent market.”

Besides being CEO effective Sept. 1, Nightingale will also join the Fastly board of directors. He succeeds Joshua Bixby, who, will step down as CEO and memeber of the board. Bixby will remain with an advisor to the company, according to Fastly.

Upon Nightingale’s exit, Cisco said it will meld its Enterprise Networking & Cloud with the Mass-Scale Infrastructure Group under the leadership of that group’s executive vice president and general manager Jonathan Davidson.

“We are confident that this new team will continue to accelerate innovation for our customers and partners and drive growth for our business,” a Cisco spokesperson stated.