Earlier this month, Brian Roddy joined OpenDNS as the EVP of engineering and operations. Roddy has experience directing research and development, building scalable cloud infrastructures, and supporting SaaS applications for top-tier enterprise customers. On choosing Roddy to head OpenDNS’s engineering initiatives, CEO David Ulevitch said, “With the expansion of our engineering teams, our planned growth, and our vision of delivering a market-leading security platform, Dan [Hubbard, CTO] and I sought out a leader for engineering who has the experience to take our incredible people and our technology and help us scale to the next set of milestones and beyond.”
Roddy joins the team most recently from Jive Software, a leading SaaS collaboration company that he helped scale through massive customer growth and usage as well as through a successful IPO. Tony Zingale, executive chairman at Jive, said of Brian, “He was the first executive I hired at Jive Software back in 2010. He transformed our multi-site development efforts, tripling our staff to over 200 engineers at 5 sites, while delivering the most comprehensive, high quality cloud and on premise products the market has ever seen. Brian did it with a calm, thoughtful, and highly communicative style. He was always a pleasure to work with, even when the going got tough.”
Prior to working with Zingale at Jive, Roddy founded Reactivity, a leading secure XML gateway provider for Global 500 organizations that was acquired by Cisco in 2007. At Cisco, he oversaw a team of more than 200 engineers building mission-critical, high performance networking products and supporting thousands of enterprise customers.
Roddy looks forward to bringing his fervor for technology to OpenDNS and is excited by the same opportunity for growth that initially drew him to Jive. He describes growing a company as “tremendously addicting” and explained how, “The security landscape is radically changing and the world is crying out for a company that can change the way security is delivered. This is an incredibly important question for the world to solve, and OpenDNS is at the forefront of this movement.”
When asked what Roddy looks for in successful team members, he put intellectual curiosity at the top of list. He said, “People who know not only the technology piece they’re looking after, but who understand the hardwares and platforms beneath it. Someone who really thinks about those things end-to-end is usually going to be a superstar.” Another surprising way to develop engineering talent? Gaming. Roddy attributes some of his strategy and planning acumen to his love of gaming. “You enter a new system with a new set of rules that is completely different from anything else, and you figure out how to optimize that win.”
Roddy’s problem solving prowess, combined with more than 20 years of management experience, passion for security, and an enthusiasm for growth and scalability make him a huge asset to the OpenDNS team. A partner at Greylock, John Lilly, with whom Roddy worked closely said, “I’ve known Brian for many years. He’s a great engineering leader and I have always loved working with him. He’ll be an excellent addition to the OpenDNS team.”
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