Barracuda Networks, Inc. has announced that it has strengthened its executive leadership team with the appointment of Hatem Naguib as senior vice president and general manager, security business, and Ezra Hookano as vice president of channels. Naguib joins Barracuda from VMware, where he helped NSX become one of the industry’s fastest growing infrastructure software products growing to $300 million over three years. Hookano, who was vice president of worldwide channels for Fusion-io, returns to Barracuda where he served as the original vice president of sales, growing the company from inception to $100 million. The new leaders will help guide Barracuda’s overall strategy to support customers looking to simplify their IT security and data protection infrastructure on-premises, in the cloud, and in hybrid deployments.
 
As SVP & GM, Security Business, Naguib has global responsibility for leading Barracuda’s security product strategy to simplify security management for IT professionals. He brings more than 25 years of experience with high-tech companies building innovative products in enterprise software, cloud services, data center virtualization, software defined networking, and cybersecurity. Most recently, he was vice president of networking and security at VMware, where he was responsible for the product, technical marketing and business development teams of VMware NSX, a leading software defined networking and security solution. Naguib joined VMware in 2006, and held several leadership positions there, including managing the global partnerships with Cisco, EMC and HP. He also served as the VMware executive leader for VCE, the converged infrastructure startup founded by VMware, Cisco and EMC. Prior to VMware, he held engineering and sales leadership positions at several startups and global corporations including CenterRun (acquired by Sun Microsystems), GE, The Walt Disney Company and Accenture.
 
As VP of Channels, Hookano is responsible for leading Barracuda’s worldwide channel strategy. He brings more than 20 years of sales experience in the high tech industry. Prior to joining Barracuda, he was vice president of channels for Exablox and vice president of worldwide channels for Fusion-io. Previously, Hookano launched the business division of Drobo, and he spent nearly six years at Barracuda as vice president of sales, North America, growing the company from inception to over $100 million in revenue. Earlier in his career he held executive sales positions in fast-growing, successful startups that were acquired by Symantec (Clyde Digital/Raxco), Intel (Dayna Communications) and SonicWALL (Phobos Corporation).
 
“With the dynamic changes in the IT landscape, sophisticated security threats, and ongoing demands on IT professionals to affordably manage the ever-expanding network, our customers face enormous challenges. Both Hatem and Ezra bring the right mix of leadership and experience to accelerate growth, drive innovation in our portfolio, and continue building out our world-class channel organization – all to better meet the diverse needs of our customers and partners. Hatem’s experience in building a fast growing security product line at a growing technology company, coupled with Ezra’s extensive knowledge of the channel, undoubtedly will give us the opportunity to continue to strengthen Barracuda’s position as the go-to provider of security and data protection,” said BJ Jenkins, president and CEO, Barracuda.
 
“As customers look to cloud and virtualization as a way to maximize their IT investment, the demand for simplifying the security of those deployments has never been greater. Security is tasked with protecting businesses from major threats across every connected device, and doing so in a way that ensures network access and efficiency isn’t compromised. Barracuda is