Todd Nightingale joins Fastly as CEO

Fastly, a company specialising in the edge cloud world, has confirmed that Todd Nightingale will be the company’s new CEO.

Nightingale’s appointment culminates an extensive search process to identify the company’s next leader. He joins Fastly from Cisco, where he previously led business strategy and development efforts for Cisco’s multi-billion dollar networking portfolio as executive vice president and general manager of Enterprise Networking and Cloud. Nightingale, who also joins Fastly’s board of directors upon assuming the role, succeeds Joshua Bixby, who, as previously announced, will step down as CEO and from Fastly’s board of directors, although he will remain with the company as an advisor.

Nightingale is known in the industry for his “technology leadership” and for his commitment to “powerful and simple solutions” for corporate, education and government, as Fastly itself emphasises. The company’s new CEO is a former senior vice president and general manager of Cisco’s Meraki business. His commitment to providing a simple and secure digital workplace led to the expansion and growth of the Meraki portfolio, making it the world’s largest managed cloud networking platform. Nightingale joined Cisco with the acquisition of Meraki in 2012. He previously held engineering and senior management positions at AirDefense, where he was responsible for product development and led the company through its acquisition by Motorola.

Artur Bergman, founder of Fastly, has remarked his confidence in Nightingale as he has the “ability” to “lead the company with the rigor and energy needed to elevate Fastly to its next level of extraordinary technology and product growth, including a strong go-to-market motion and operational strengths.” David Hornik, a member of Fastly’s board of directors, also believes the new CEO will be able to take the company “to its next stage of growth.”

Finally, Nightingale himself, in his first statement as CEO, said he was “honoured and grateful for the opportunity to be part of the Fastly team.”