With sights on growth, new CFO Rémi Thomas plays a critical role in scaling up the global networking company

NEW YORK (Feb. 26, 2019) — Acertitude, the executive search firm unleashing human potential, has recruited Rémi Thomas as chief financial officer for Extreme Networks Inc. (“Extreme”)(NASDAQ:EXTR), a software-driven networking company. Thomas reports to Ed Meyercord, president and chief executive officer.

Thomas steps in as CFO as Extreme continues to transform and scale its business, a journey that started in 2015. Competing head-on with industry giants Cisco, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and Juniper Networks, Extreme has since become the fastest growing networking company and has been recognized as a leader in wired and wireless LAN access infrastructure by the world’s most influential tech analyst firm.

The company is still on a roll. In the last two years, Extreme has closed three acquisitions, procuring major business units of Zebra Technologies, Avaya, and Brocade Communications. Meyercord says, “We are not done yet. We remain laser-focused on serving enterprise customers with an opportunistic view toward future M&A, combined with internal innovation, to expand our product line and strengthen our presence in key vertical markets.”

Thomas plays a major role in all of this. As CFO, he is taking extreme ownership for the company’s finance organization, working closely with the executive team, board of directors, and investors, and managing reporting and forecasting to drive profitability, efficiencies, and value for shareholders.

“As we continue to push into the enterprise market, having a strategic, global finance executive like Rémi on the team is paramount to the success of our growth journey,” said Meyercord. “There is no doubt that he is the right person to help us monetize our development and productization efforts moving forward. He comes from top pedigree technology firms, has strong M&A experience and a deep understanding of the software business. We are extremely excited to welcome him to the Extreme family.”

Thomas has 25+ years of finance experience, and comes to Extreme from CA Technologies, where he served as senior vice president, corporate controller for the past year and a half. Prior, he served as vice president of finance at HPE Software, a business unit of Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Thomas also worked for Alcatel-Lucent for close to eight years in various finance leadership roles including CFO for Enterprise and Strategic Industries, CFO for APAC, CFO for Wireless Networks and finally, head of M&A and Corporate Development.

The CFO search was led by Acertitude Managing Partner Rick DeRose and Senior Partner Scott Carberry, both specialized in C-level executive searches for technology enterprises.

“To serve the needs of 21st century customers, CFOs must be strategic business leaders, working organization-wide to drive transformation, identify value-creation initiatives, digitize business activities, and guide decision-making,” says DeRose. “This profile perfectly suits Rémi. He is a highly capable, global finance leader, well equipped to help Ed tap into Extreme’s rapidly growing pipeline of opportunity while serving a broadening and impressive customer base with pure-play, end-to-end networking solutions.”

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