Riverbed appoints Tom Pickett as CFO
Riverbed announced that Tom Pickett has been appointed Chief Financial Officer (CFO), responsible for all aspects of accounting, finance, tax, treasury and facilities.
Reporting to CEO Dan Smoot, Pickett will join the executive leadership team to drive continued momentum for Riverbed and the Company’s visibility, unified observability and acceleration solutions. Pickett has over 30 years of executive finance experience in both public and private accounting, private equity, early-stage ventures and mature global companies. Having held previous CFO roles, he brings to Riverbed substantial operational leadership and expertise in mergers and acquisitions and raising capital.
“Tom’s strength in operational leadership and his strategic approach to financial management is the right experience at the right time for Riverbed, to meet and exceed our financial and business goals,” said Dan Smoot, President and CEO of Riverbed Technology. “He will be a strong leader within our Executive Leadership Team, as we continue to build on our market momentum, including the strong growth for our visibility and unified observability solutions.”
“Riverbed has significant market opportunities ahead, as organizations worldwide are looking to capitalize on their digital transformation investments and increase the visibility, observability and performance of the applications, networks and end-user devices they run on,” said Pickett. “Riverbed is in a solid financial and market position, and I’m looking forward to working with our experienced team to further our execution and drive great results for the Company and our investors.”
Pickett has worked for companies in a variety of industry and technology markets including SaaS, networking and data center equipment and consulting services, medical devices, and enterprise software. Pickett most recently served as the Chief Financial Officer at Zapproved, a private equity backed SaaS provider of litigation compliance and management tools. In his role, Pickett led financial planning and analysis, business and revenue operations and accounting. He also spearheaded the Company’s go-to-market partnering strategies working alongside the CEO.
Before joining Zapproved in 2018, Pickett served as the Chief Financial Officer and Compliance Officer at Curvature, a private equity backed global information technology products and services company headquartered in Goleta, California. In his role, Pickett was responsible for all of Curvature’s finance, accounting, human resources and legal operations in the US, Europe and Asia.
Prior to joining Curvature in 2014, Pickett served as a consulting Chief Financial Officer. In his practice he worked with companies in a variety of industries including packaging, logistics services, database marketing, internet-based communications, and medical devices. Prior to starting his consulting practice, Pickett worked for over 20 years in accounting, finance and business operations with companies ranging from technology-based start-ups to a multi-national publicly traded corporation in the information services business.
Pickett holds a master’s degree in business administration from Harvard Business School and a Bachelor of Science degree in Commerce from the University of Virginia. He also completed Stanford Business School’s Executive Program in Strategy and Organization.