Riverbed Names Former Mitel CEO Rich McBee As Its New Leader

Mitel's former CEO, Rich McBee, will be replacing Riverbed's interium CEO and chairman David Murphy.

Rich McBee, former CEO of UCaaS giant Mitel, is now taking the reins at Riverbed.

San Francisco-based Riverbed on Tuesday announced that McBee has been appointed president and CEO of the network technology firm and will be continuing to push Riverbed’s Digital Networking and Digital Experience Management businesses.

Prior to McBee’s appointment, Riverbed Chairman David Murphy took on the interim role of CEO of the company in October. Riverbed's CEO of five years at the time, Paul Mountford, left Riverbed to take another position in the industry, according to the company.

[Related: Mitel CEO Rich McBee Leaving The UCaaS Star For ‘New Opportunity’]

Riverbed did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CRN on its new appointment.

Chairman and interim CEO Murphy called McBee a "strong leader and strategist" with a solid track record of driving business execution and results in a statement. "Riverbed has experienced strong performance recently and [McBee] is the right leader to continue our upward momentum, as well as bring the passion and dedication to operational excellence that he is well known for in the industry."

McBee has more than 30 years of leadership experience, including his most recent eight-year tenure as Mitel's CEO. Under his leadership, McBee was critical in evolving the company from a premise-based private branch exchange (PBX) provider to one of the market leaders of public and private cloud-based communications and collaboration solutions for businesses and saw the company through several acquisitions, including its ShoreTel buy for $530 million.

Mitel was acquired by an investor group led by Searchlight Capital Partners in 2018 and was taken private.

Prior to his role with Mitel, McBee served as president of the communications and enterprise group for Danaher Corporation for three years, and senior vice president and general manager of the communications business unit for Tektronix Communications.