Ayla Networks, a global Internet of Things (IoT) platform-as-a-service (PaaS) company, recently announced that Jonathan Cobb has been promoted from chief operating officer (COO) to CEO, while David Friedman, current CEO and co-founder, will take on a new role as executive chairman and chief strategy officer (CSO). In addition, Ayla Networks has hired Dave Adams as its new chief financial officer (CFO) and Prashanth Shetty as VP, global marketing.
Ayla Networks has experienced significant growth in recent years, with more than $100 million in total funding through its D round; a joint venture established with Sunsea Telecommunications in China; partnerships with leading companies including Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud; and an expanding roster of global enterprise customers.
“Since launching Ayla Networks eight years ago, I’ve seen the company blossom and execute toward our vision of harnessing the power of IoT to fuel enterprise digital transformation,” said Friedman. “The organizational changes announced today will allow us to accelerate this vision. I have had the great pleasure to work with Jon this past year, and I am confident that he is the right leader to position the company for our next phase of hypergrowth.”
“With these executive changes, Ayla Networks is tapping the expertise of new leaders with significant experience at both late-stage pre-IPO and publicly traded companies,” said Cobb. “I am also happy that we will continue to retain Dave’s deep company experience and knowledge to put Ayla Networks on the road to #1 market position.”
Jonathan Cobb joined Ayla Networks as chief operating officer in July 2017. Since then, he has focused on aligning operations with the company’s long-term goals. Cobb previously served as president, software and services, at Pace, a publicly held consumer-electronics company that was acquired by ARRIS International PLC in 2016.
Friedman has served as CEO of Ayla Networks since he co-founded the company in 2010. Friedman saw the coming evolution of a world of connected devices and set out to create an end-to-end IoT platform that would enable manufacturers and service providers to reap the business benefits of IoT. His new role as executive chairman and CSO will allow him to focus on fundraising, corporate evangelism and charting the company’s business and product strategy.
Dave Adams brings 20 years of financial expertise to his role as CFO for Ayla Networks. During his career, he has developed the teams, processes, systems and strategies to support public offerings, numerous preferred financing rounds, mergers, acquisitions and debt offerings for a number of leading technology companies.
Adams previously ran the finance function for ChargePoint; had senior leadership roles at Fastly; was corporate controller for cloud content management at file sharing company Box; and served as a controller for Ion Torrent Systems. Earlier in his career, Adams held finance and accounting roles with VeriSign, Affymetrix, VIAVI Solutions/JDSU, eBay and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).
Prashanth Shetty heads up Ayla Networks’ global marketing team, bringing more than 20 years of experience in product and corporate marketing. Most recently, Shetty was vice president and chief marketing officer (CMO) for Guardian Analytics. Previously, he served as vice president of global product marketing for CA Technologies’ Cyber Security & API Management divisions, and he held various general management and leadership roles at EMC, SAP and MetricStream.
Ken Briodagh is a writer and editor with more than a decade of experience under his belt. He is in love with technology and if he had his druthers would beta test everything from shoe phones to flying cars.
