Astaro appoints Richard Walford as VP of Engineering
New executive position provides enhanced focus and experience to deliver ambitious product roadmap.
Burlington, MA (October 8, 2008) – Astaro Corporation (www.astaro.com), a leading vendor of integrated security appliances, today announced the appointment of Richard Walford to the new position of VP of Engineering. Walford, who will be based in Karlsruhe, Germany, joins from SDL Tridion, where he held the position of VP of Research and Development (R&D). As VP of Engineering at Astaro, his main responsibilities will include ensuring ongoing product quality and delivery of the Astaro product roadmap.
Walford has extensive experience in the software industry, having held senior management roles in companies such as Compuware, Softlab and Metier Management Systems. Within these companies, his responsibilities have spanned both software and business development, including specifying, planning, developing, delivering, launching and selling complex software products on the leading edge of technology.
Gert Hansen, chief software architect and co-founder of Astaro, was responsible for creating the new position and recruiting Walford to the role: "With the ongoing high growth that Astaro is experiencing, it was becoming obvious that for me to be personally responsible for managing R&D, as well as product management and helping to guide the company’s long-term strategy, was not a sustainable position. We decided to increase the time I had available to product management and strategy by extending the senior management team to include a highly experienced R&D leader.”
Hansen continues, “With a manager fully focused on R&D, Astaro can further increase product quality and deliver our ambitious product release schedule. Richard has more than two decades’ software experience. He is well versed in state of the art software development methods and has managed both small and large development teams across multiple locations. Time and again he has demonstrated that he can develop high quality products and launch them to market on schedule. We are delighted that Richard has chosen to join us.”
On his appointment, Richard Walford commented, “With the phenomenal success of Astaro’s UTM product and the recent introduction of the Astaro Mail and Web Gateways, the company has a true multi-product offering and is growing rapidly. My challenge is to lead the engineering team through the necessary maturation and transformation to allow it to scale and multi-task without losing anything of the innovative, energised and focused culture that has made Astaro the success it is.”
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About Astaro
Astaro offers the most complete and easy to use Internet security appliances available. Combining best of breed applications, the proven quality of Linux and enterprise level performance, Astaro’s award-winning products provide the latest protection with the best total cost of ownership. Software, hardware and virtual appliance offerings provide users the flexibility to meet a wide variety of deployment scenarios. Distributed by a growing worldwide network of more than 2,500 resellers, Astaro products protect over 35,000 businesses in 60 countries. Astaro, headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts, USA and Karlsruhe, Germany, offers free downloads of its products at www.astaro.com.
Contact
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