Riverbed Technology, the application performance company, has announced that Kate Hutchison has been appointed chief marketing officer (CMO). Hutchison will report directly to Riverbed Chairman and CEO, Jerry M. Kennelly.
“Kate brings extraordinary business expertise and marketing leadership to Riverbed,” said Kennelly. “She is well recognized for developing strategies that have accelerated growth and built the brands of some of the world’s most successful technology companies including Polycom, VMware, Citrix and BEA. Kate’s insight and industry knowledge will help us elevate the Riverbed brand, stimulate increased demand for our solutions, and drive revenue growth across our entire product portfolio. We are delighted to welcome her inspiration and leadership.”
Before joining Riverbed, Hutchison was executive vice president and CMO at Polycom where she helped drive the company’s transformation and leadership in software-driven unified communications and video collaboration. Prior to Polycom, Hutchison was CMO and vice president of Marketing for VMware, where she expanded the company’s position from a hypervisor vendor to a provider of virtualization solutions to help customers build private and public clouds.
During her five years at Citrix, Hutchison helped develop the strategy to double the company’s revenue and emerge as a leader in application access and delivery. While at BEA Systems, Hutchison built and led all aspects of marketing as the company grew from $300M to $1B in three years – one of the fastest software companies to achieve a billion in annual revenue.
“I am thrilled to be joining Jerry and the team at Riverbed,” said Hutchison. “Riverbed is well poised for its next decade of growth in helping customers eliminate the limitations imposed by distance and location as they build out their IT infrastructure. Riverbed has an outstanding culture of innovation excellence and I’m excited to apply my expertise and leverage industry trends to drive revenue growth.”
In her 20-year career Hutchison has held senior positions managing all aspects of marketing including product marketing, corporate marketing, communications, lead generation, developer relations, vertical/solutions marketing, digital and social marketing.
In 2005, Hutchison received the Distinguished Alumni award from Southampton College, Long Island University (now part of SUNY Stony Brook). She has also received the YWCA Tribute to Women in Industry (TWIN) award. Hutchison received her Master of Arts from San Francisco State University and a bachelor’s degree from Long Island University, Southampton College.
She is an active volunteer with the Phuket Marine Biological Center in Phuket, Thailand, contributing to an initiative called Green Fins that’s devoted to protecting coral reefs and promoting sustainable diving tourism practices (http://www.greenfins-thailand.org/).
