Finalist
Technology
In 2002, Aruba Networks Inc. launched as a small fish in a big pond, facing much larger competitors, such as Motorola and Cisco Systems.
When the company was founded, the network security industry was transfixed on wireline network security. Aruba’s aim was to take networking security wireless.
Just a few years later in 2007, the company had risen to become the No. 2 player in the industry, under the leadership of President and CEO Dominic Orr, who joined the company in 2006 and took it public in 2007. He capitalized on the existing infrastructure and then took it to another level, delivering optimized infrastructure, security and excellent customer experience. He saw an opportunity for Aruba Networks to succeed by getting into a secure, massively scalable enterprise wire infrastructure to compete against Cisco, and he’s helped the company soar with continuous innovation, value-based engineering and a relentless focus on customer support.
In addition, he has made focus and motivation the keystones of the company, directing employees to focus on the most important issues and inspiring them to work harder than the competition by choosing “thoughtful speed” over the traditional idea of being speedy. This focus helped the company navigate through difficult times and even helped to boost its key performance indicators.
The efforts of Orr and his team have attracted customers including Yahoo, Microsoft, Google, eBay and the U.S. Air Force, allowing them to securely extend the reach of their corporate networks to service users wherever they are.
In addition to focusing on clients, Orr places a great emphasis on maintaining a positive culture, making it easy for employees to telecommute and eliminating the traditional fixed number of vacation days, allowing managers to structure time off based on the needs of the employees and their families.
“We want employees to be productive and have a happy family life,” Orr says.
How to reach: Aruba Networks Inc., (408) 227-4500 or www.arubanetworks.com
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