Highway 9 Networks Expands Leadership Team With Seasoned Industry Executives

Cloud and networking industry veterans from Cisco and IBM join to bolster the company’s go-to-market and customer journey efforts

Today Highway 9 Networks has expanded its executive team with two new leadership hires at a time of accelerating growth and market momentum. Faiyaz Shahpurwala has joined the company as Chief Operating and Customer Officer to oversee all aspects of the customer journey and success. Highway 9 also welcomed Mark Weiner as Chief Marketing Officer, where he will be responsible for the marketing organization and company brand.

"We warmly welcome Faiyaz and Mark to drive customer and marketing strategy in this pivotal stage of our company," said Allwyn Sequeira, founder and CEO, Highway 9 Networks. "The Highway 9 Mobile Cloud platform has been well received by customers, partners and investors. We look forward to Faiyaz and Mark leveraging this initial success and momentum to drive explosive growth given their deep enterprise, networking and cloud experience in leadership roles. I've had the opportunity to work with Faiyaz and Mark previously, and am looking forward to what promises to be a great partnership."

Faiyaz’s experience spans more than three decades of creating, building and leading multiple service and product organizations. Prior to joining Highway 9 Networks, he served as Chief Product and Strategy Officer at data security innovator Fortanix. Prior to that, he was Vice President and General Manager for IBM Cloud Platform, overseeing data centers in 19 countries across six continents and delivering a broad portfolio of cloud offerings, including Watson, Blockchain, and IoT services. Notably, Faiyaz spent 20+ years with networking leader Cisco, where led the expansion of Cisco’s inter-cloud infrastructure, and was also responsible for building Cisco's multi-billion Advanced Services business and significantly boosted revenue through innovations in IoT, Smart+Connected Communities and cloud-converged infrastructure.

"As enterprises embrace next-generation AI technologies, the need for performant and reliable mobile connectivity becomes increasingly critical,” said Shahpurwala. “Customers choose Highway 9 Networks because it transcends legacy fixed wireless solutions like Wi-Fi, offering a mobile cloud platform that not only provides always-on, low-latency connectivity, but also integrates with existing IT infrastructures and provides end-to-end visibility and control for operations teams. The company’s market-defining innovations and resulting growth is a testament to the value customers are seeing."

Mark comes to Highway 9 with 35 years of marketing leadership experience. He has served as CMO/VP of Marketing at nine successful startups including distributed cloud vendor Volterra (acquired by F5), cloud storage vendor StorSimple (acquired by Microsoft), cloud network provider Virtela (acquired by NTT Japan), and application delivery pioneer NetScaler (acquired by Citrix). Mark also led product + technical marketing across F5 following its 2021 acquisition of Volterra, and at Cisco for $1 billion of data center products across multiple business units. Earlier in his career he spent several years in telecommunications, serving as VP of Global Marketing at Redback Networks. Mark is also an adjunct faculty member at Santa Clara University’s Engineering School.

“Highway 9 Networks is bringing the power and simplicity of the cloud to enterprise mobile connectivity, something that has been clearly lacking,” said Weiner. “Since coming to market over the last year, prominent analyst firms like Gartner and Enterprise Management Associates have highlighted the value Highway 9 brings to customers, and interest has been increasing rapidly with large organizations signing up to deploy our mobile cloud."

About Highway 9 Networks

Founded by veteran cloud and networking innovators, Highway 9 Networks has developed a unique cloud-based approach to enterprise mobile networking that addresses both everywhere, always-on mobile coverage and AI's dynamic connectivity requirements. The Highway 9 Mobile Cloud leverages the key capabilities of private cellular technology coupled with a cloud-native mobile platform to provide the consistent operations, IT integration and ease-of-use that today's enterprises require. Learn more at highway9.com.

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