Partners Reflect On Selina Lo's Legacy As The Ruckus Wireless CEO Departs
Ruckus Wireless' CEO since 2004, Selina Lo, is set to leave the company at the end of this month. Lo led the company until it was sold to Brocade Communications for $1.2 billion last year and partners have high praise for her leadership.
"Her DNA has been firmly instilled into Ruckus which has enabled Ruckus to survive such upheavals and transitions in the last 24 months," said Gary Berzack, CTO and COO of New York-based eTribeca, a networking solution provider and longtime Ruckus partner.
Berzack was alongside Lo during Ruckus' IPO at the New York Stock Exchange in 2012.
"All the employees that have worked directly for her have always felt that she's been a driving force and has been dedicated. I have never met anybody who has felt that she was lacking in executive leadership and that's part of the success of Ruckus -- a consistent executive team," he said. "She ran an organization with less than 30 people into one with over 1,000."
Brocade confirmed that Lo will be leaving the company at the end of May. The company said she is retiring.
Lo's departure comes during a difficult period for Ruckus which is amid a sales restructuring ahead of it being acquired by Arris. Some Ruckus-Brocade channel partners are currently struggling to keep their business afloat, but solution providers say Lo's legacy is intact and she will remain part of the company's DNA moving forward.
With Lo at the helm, partners hailed Ruckus' strong marketing abilities and competitive drive over the years as key reasons why the vendor was able to compete effectively.
"What she did was build a company that had a great icon, a great marketing brand and just used that to extend their dominance in very specific verticals," said Michael Knight, president and CTO of Encore Technology Group, a Greenville, S.C.-based solution provider, No. 376 on the 2016 CRN Solution Provider 500. "When you look at Ruckus they did such a good job with their branding -- everybody knows who the barking dog is."
Prior to Ruckus, Lo was vice president of marketing and product management for Alteon Websystems, which went public in 1999 and later sold to Nortel in 2000 for a whopping $7.8 billion. She also co-founded Centillion Networks which was acquired by Bay Networks in 1995 for $140 million.
Lo was named CEO of Ruckus in 2004 and grew the company into a nearly $400 million wireless vendor. Ruckus generated $100 million in revenues for its first fiscal quarter 2016, the final quarterly earnings report before it was acquired by Brocade.
Solution providers said Lo is a known as an innovator and leader in Silicon Valley.
"Anytime any individual can start a technology company and built it to the level that she built it, there's nothing but positive things to say about that leadership and vision," said Knight.
In May 2016, Brocade completed its acquisition of Ruckus Wireless for $1.2 billion. Brocade-Ruckus is now set to be acquired by Broadcom later this summer for $5.9 billion, who then plans to sell Ruckus to Arris immediately.
Andrew Fisher, CEO of Myriad Supply, a New York-based solution provider who partners with Brocade and Ruckus, said Lo "built an amazing organization" and hopes Arris continues to deliver on the "great partnership that we've come to expect from Ruckus."
Ruckus' current COO Dan Rabinovitsj will helm the Ruckus business unit inside Arris.