Security veteran Vishak Raman quits Cisco to return to Fortinet

Cybersecurity veteran Vishak Raman, who was leading IT networking major Cisco System’s Security business for the India and SAARC region, has returned to Fortinet, a network security firm, after nearly a decade.  

Raman resigned from his position of Senior Regional Director, India & SAARC in 2013 November. In his new role at Fortinet, Raman joins as the Vice President for Sales in India, SAARC and Southeast Asia.

Meanwhile, Fortinet’s Regional VP Sales for India and SAARC, Rajesh Maurya, moves into a new role within the company, which a statement said, will be announced in the coming weeks.  

Raman brings with him over two decades of experience in the cybersecurity space with proven expertise in product management, sales, marketing and business development. 

Also read: Over 50% organisations face gaps in zero-trust implementations: Fortinet 

Earlier, at Fortinet, he had spent 10 years (2003-2013) playing an instrumental role in growing the company. He also set up a first-of-its-kind Technical Assistance Center at Bangalore which has over 200 engineers who provide 24/7 support to Fortinet’s customers in India and the Middle East.

Prior to Fortinet as VP for Sales in India, SAARC and Southeast Asia, he was Director of Security Business, India & SAARC at Cisco. He has also worked in various roles at FireEye, Tata Communications, WatchGuard, Sify and HCL Technologies. 

“Welcoming back” Raman to the company to lead in a new role, Joe Sarno, Sr. Vice President International Sales, Emerging & APJ at Fortinet said, “He (Raman) brings along tremendous experience and cybersecurity market insights to add to our leadership team. Raman will be a key contributor as we continue to consolidate our leadership position and drive future growth in key areas, such as the convergence of security and networking, continued expansion of the Security Fabric mesh platform and adoption of our Secure SD-WAN, SD-Branch, Adaptive Cloud and OT.”

“I look forward to working with the sales team, channel partners and distributors to secure networks from the expanding attack surface, increasingly sophisticated cyber threats and address network security complexity challenges which most organisations face,” Raman said talking about his new role within the company. 

“Given our leadership in security innovation we have a robust pipeline and strong business momentum and are well positioned to continue the solid growth for several more years in this market,” he added. 

Raman holds an engineering degree from PSG College of Technology, Tamil Nadu and a Post Graduate Diploma in Business Management from IIM Ahmedabad.