Riverbed Technology in full flow with new CEO and PE owner

Vector Capital's takeover of Riverbed has officially completed

Riverbed Technology has gained a new head at the table following the completion of Vector Capital's takeover acquisition.

The group not only has a new owner but also a new chief exec with Dave Donatelli stepping into the top job with immediate effect.

Dan Smoot, who previously served as CEO, will continue to support the company on a transitional basis.

Donatelli previously served as executive VP of the cloud business group at Oracle Corporation.

He also worked as executive VP of the enterprise group at Hewlett-Packard leading the $30bn division and overseeing storage, server, networking, and converged infrastructure solutions.

As part of this new phase, John Theler, who most recently served as the CFO at MarkLogic and earlier as the CFO at Riverbed, is rejoining Riverbed as CFO.

Theler brings over 25 years of experience as a financial professional for both large public and mid-sized privately owned software, hardware, SaaS and technology-solutions businesses.

"Riverbed is a terrific business with a strong foundation for success. Its industry leading portfolios, Alluvio by Riverbed for Unified Observability and Riverbed Acceleration are market leaders with blue-chip customer bases," said Donatelli.

"Bolstered by a significantly improved capital structure, I look forward to working with Riverbed's team and Vector Capital to enhance our product offerings through innovation and strategic growth investments."

Managing director of Vector Capital, Andy Fishman added: "Dave is a proven leader who brings to Riverbed deep knowledge and experience driving growth at scaled technology businesses.

"He is a purposeful changemaker with a customer-first approach and is the ideal person to lead the company forward as it pursues continued growth and scale.

"We are excited that John Theler, a highly skilled and proven finance executive, will be joining as CFO and welcome him to the team.

"We would also like to thank Dan Smoot for his contributions to the company and his support navigating the transition and wish him the very best in his future endeavours."

The acquisition was first announced in early June 2023.

Riverbed has had financial issues in the past, and in 2021 went into chapter 11 bankruptcy.

However, Riverbed in late 2021 entered into a restructuring support agreement with its equity sponsors at the time and a group of lenders that reduced its funded secured debt by over $1bn and provided a $100m cash infusion.