F5 Networks announced on Monday that Mike Convertino has joined the company as its first-ever Chief Information Security Officer (CISO).
Based in Seattle at F5’s headquarters, Convertino comes to F5 from CrowdStrike, where he served as CISO and was responsible for the security of both CrowdStrike’s corporate network and its product platform.
According to the company, Convertino will be tasked with the protection of company and customer assets and data, and will also play a lead role in the development of F5’s security product roadmap.
Before CrowdStrike, Convertino was the senior director of network security at Microsoft, where he was responsible for protecting the company’s networks from intrusion and exploitation. Prior to Microsoft, Convertino was a Colonel in the U.S. Air Force responsible for a unit of over 600 telecommunications, computer, signals intelligence, and information operations personnel, developing cyber capabilities for the Department of Defense. During his time in service, he served both as a Squadron and Group Commander and on the Joint Staff in the Pentagon.
Convertino holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering (BSEE) and Master’s degrees in Management Information Systems from Webster University and in International Security Studies from the U.S. Air Force.
“With our focus on application access, F5 holds a unique vantage point on security,” Tony Bozzuti, senior vice president and chief information officer at F5, said in a statement. “We see the enormous risk applications are exposed to as users and data travel from device to data center and back again. What Mike Convertino brings to F5 is both deep experience and strong leadership to help our own operations, our partners, and our customers take the best advantage of our application-level security.”
According to CEO John McAdam, security is a major growth area for the company, and in fiscal 2015, approximately 41 percent of total annual product sales included one or more security products. F5’s revenue was $1.92 billion in fiscal 2015.
