Meru Networks, Inc., the pioneer in 802.11n enterprise networking, today announced the company is expanding its executive management team with the appointment of Ram Appalaraju to the role of senior vice president of marketing and Glenn Cross, senior vice president of worldwide sales. The two industry veterans bring a combined 45+ years of sales and marketing experience to Meru and will lead the company’s go-to market and field operations strategy for the rapidly expanding enterprise wireless networking market.

Over the last 25 years, Ram Appalaraju has held various senior marketing positions, driving aggressive lead generation strategies and expanding the brand awareness for both public and private technology companies. He comes to Meru from Isilon Systems where he was vice president of marketing. Appalaraju has also held vice president positions at Azul Systems and Hewlett Packard. He is an accomplished leader in driving strategies for increased market awareness and effective demand generation in enterprise and mid markets, while achieving business growth. He has extensive experience in engaging with CXO’s in global 2000 companies for business/IT and end-user solutions.

Glenn Cross assumes the post of senior vice president of worldwide sales, service and support for Meru Networks and is responsible for leading the worldwide sales and service strategy as well as driving overall revenue growth. Over the course of 25 years, Cross has lead the sales initiatives for companies like Sun Microsystems, Adobe, Palm and Lotus/ IBM, during high-growth periods for the organizations. Most recently Cross was senior vice president of global sales for Secure Computing, which was acquired by McAffee in 2008. At Secure Computing, Cross managed the global sales force and revamped the field marketing operations and go-to market strategies to increase company revenue. Prior to Secure Computing, Cross held the position of executive vice president for global sales at SurfControl (later acquired by WebSense), senior vice president of worldwide sales for Nuance Communications, acquired by ScanSoft in 2005, and senior vice president of ActivCard, Inc.

“Appalaraju and Cross bring a depth of industry expertise and diverse experience in different technology segments and across various company sizes, both private and public, to Meru,” said Ihab Abu-Hakima, chief executive officer, Meru Networks. “With a proven track record in building brand awareness and accelerating revenue growth, we’re excited to welcome them to the management team and look forward to their contributions in elevating Meru as the leader in enterprise wireless networking solutions.”

About Meru Networks

Founded in 2002, Meru Networks develops and markets wireless LAN infrastructure solutions that use virtualization to deliver pervasive, high-fidelity wireless service for business-critical voice, video and data applications. The company first introduced its award-winning virtual cell wireless architecture in 2003, and Meru products embody a complete departure from typical hub-based WLAN approaches, offering a wireless solution with levels of performance, reliability, security and cost-effectiveness previously found only in wired networking environments. Meru's solutions have been adopted in all major industry vertical markets, including Fortune 500 enterprises, healthcare, education, retail, manufacturing, hospitality and government. Meru is headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif., and has operations in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Asia Pacific. For more information, visit www.merunetworks.com or call (408) 215-5300.