François Locoh-Donou vs Ken Xie

François Locoh-Donou

CEO of F5, Inc.

BIO: François Locoh-Donou is President and Chief Executive Officer of F5 and a member of the company’s Board of Directors. Since joining F5 as CEO in April 2017, he has spearheaded the company’s business transformation from a networking hardware maker to a software- and SaaS-first leader in multi-cloud application security and delivery. He has also been instrumental in the company’s cultural transformation to a high-performance, human-first organization energized by F5’s purpose to bring a better digital world to life. Prior to joining F5, Locoh-Donou served as Chief Operating Officer at Ciena, a global networking solutions provider to the telecom industry; his leadership positions there also included executive roles in the Product, Sales, and Marketing organizations. He also held research and development roles at Photonetics, a French opto-electronics company. Raised in Togo and France, Locoh-Donou holds engineering degrees from École Centrale de Marseille and Télécom ParisTech in France, as well as an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He is the co-founder and chairman of Cajou Espoir, a cashew processing business employing several hundred people, mostly women, in rural Togo. Locoh-Donou also serves on the Board of Directors of Capital One, one of the most recognized brands in banking serving the U.S., U.K., and Canada.

Ken Xie

CEO of Fortinet

BIO: Mr. Ken Xie founded Fortinet Inc., and has been its Chief Executive Officer and Director since October 2000. Mr. Xie serves as an Advisor at WI Harper Group. He is a Strategic Advisor at Trident Capital Cybersecurity. He served as President at Fortinet Inc, from October 2000 to November 11, 2013. He founded NetScreen and Stanford Infosystems International, Inc and served as its President and Chief Executive Officer. He served as a Managing Partner of Jedi Venture. He served as Lead Security Architect of Healtheon Corporation (now WebMD) and Philips. He started his first company SIS in 1993. He has over 15 years of technical and management experience in the networking and security industries. Mr. Xie serves as the Chairman of Fortinet Inc. He has been an Independent Director of TeleNav, Inc. since July 2012. He serves as a Board Member of HuaYuan Science and Technologies Association. In 2006, he was named a Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum and Time Magazine and Northern California Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst & Young. He was also recognized as a Top 5 Entrepreneur by Entrepreneur Magazine in 2005, top 25 Chinese-Americans in Business by Forbes in 2010, and Father of UTM in an InfoSecurity cover story in 2011. He is also a state registered Professional Engineer in Electrical and hold certificates of Advanced Project Management, Strategic Decision and Risk Management from Stanford University. Mr. Xie holds a B.S. and an M.S. in electrical engineering from Tsinghua University in China and an M.S. and doctorate in electrical engineering from Stanford University.