Riverbed Crowns New CEO As Vector Capital Takeover Closes

Private equity firm Vector Capital has completed its acquisition of Riverbed Technology as the observability provider names former Oracle and HP executive Dave Donatelli as its new CEO.

Riverbed CEO Dave Donatelli

Private equity firm Vector Capital Tuesday said that it has completed its acquisition of Riverbed Technology. At the same time, the observability provider has gained a new CEO.

Tech veteran Dave Donatelli is now Riverbed’s CEO, effective immediately. Donatelli replaces Dan Smoot, Riverbed’s CEO since 2021, who will continue to support the company on a transitional basis, according to the companies.

Vector Capital at the end of May unveiled plans to acquire Riverbed for an undisclosed sum. San Francisco-based Riverbed, for its part, said in May that the acquisition would not affect its road map, but would strengthen its balance sheet.

[Related: Riverbed Launches MSP Program As Company Revamps Overall Channel Approach]

Riverbed has two core brands. Its Riverbed Alluvio line provides unified observability and digital transformation management, and its Riverbed Acceleration line provides SaaS and cloud acceleration and WAN hardware and software optimization.

The company in May launched a new channel program geared toward MSPs targeting the midmarket, a new demographic for the longtime enterprise-focused company.

New CEO Donatelli most recently served as the lead independent director at MarkLogic, a data management and data integration solution provider and Vector Capital portfolio company. The longtime tech executive previously held the role of executive vice president of the Cloud Business Group at Oracle and before that served as executive vice president of the Enterprise Group for HP, where he led the $30 billion division and oversaw storage, server, networking and converged infrastructure solutions. Donatelli began his career at EMC, where he held a variety of roles.

“Bolstered by a significantly improved capital structure, I look forward to working with Riverbed’s team and Vector Capital to enhance our product offerings through innovation and strategic growth investments,” Donatelli said in a statement.

Joining Donatelli at Riverbed is John Theler, who most recently served as the CFO of MarkLogic. No stranger to Riverbed, Theler was also CFO of Riverbed from 2015 to 2019. The executive brings more than two decades of financial experience in both large public and midsize privately owned software, hardware, SaaS and technology solutions businesses, according to Vector Capital.

Theler replaces Tom Pickett, who was appointed Riverbed’s CFO in 2022. Pickett left the company in February.

San Francisco-based Vector Capital holds equity in multiple companies in markets adjacent to those of Riverbed, including security companies Malwarebytes and WatchGuard Technologies, and networking companies such as Cambium Technologies.