Akamai Appoints Fari Ebrahimi as Chief Information Officer

Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), the world’s largest and most trusted cloud delivery platform, announced today the appointment of Fari Ebrahimi as Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer, effective immediately.

Reporting to CEO Dr. Tom Leighton, Mr. Ebrahimi will be responsible for end-to-end business transformation including global strategy, development, and operation of the applications and IT infrastructure that enable agile and efficient user experiences for Akamai’s customers, employees, and partners. Mr. Ebrahimi will be based in Akamai’s corporate headquarters in Cambridge, MA.

Mr. Ebrahimi most recently served as SVP and Global CIO of Avaya, leading the company’s end-to-end digital transformation for 11,000 global employees, 10,000 partners, and thousands of customers worldwide. Helping to establish Avaya as a leader in Internet telephony, wireless data communications and customer relationship management software, Mr. Ebrahimi was responsible for employee and customer engagement of cloud and mobile technologies, while maximizing cost-savings through innovation and business process re-engineering.

Prior to Avaya, Mr. Ebrahimi spent 13 years at Verizon Communications in executive IT roles including President of Verizon Information Technologies, where he managed a global IT software and services P&L with annual revenues of $150M, and as SVP and CIO of Verizon Services Operations, leading over 4,000 technology professionals focused on streamlining operations across Verizon.

"Fari brings an impressive and proven background of IT operations excellence to Akamai," said Dr. Leighton. "He has demonstrated both significant results and cost savings in leading complex enterprise transformations, especially in the areas of cloud, mobile and security. We look forward to combining his talents with our existing strong IT team."

"I am delighted to be joining Akamai at such an exciting time," Mr. Ebrahimi said. "Akamai is helping enterprises leverage the Internet to create real, transformative change in the areas of cloud, mobile, and security. As CIO, my goal will be to drive and scale end-to-end digital transformation across all business processes to maximize and secure our customer, partner, and employee experiences, while optimizing operations leveraging Akamai’s world-class solutions."

With 21 U.S. patents granted in his name, and 6 patent application publications, Mr. Ebrahimi is an active publisher and speaker at national and global forums on industry trends impacting today’s CIO.

Mr. Ebrahimi succeeds Kumud Kalia, who will remain with Akamai in an advisory role over the next two months as part of a planned transition.

"I want to thank Kumud for all he has contributed to Akamai over the past six years as an executive and a trusted IT advisor," Dr. Leighton added. "He joined as we were entering a crucial period of employee growth and product line diversification. We wish him well with his next endeavors."