Fuze, a Cambridge-based provider of unified cloud communications software, has named Dyn CEO Colin Doherty as its new leader while giving former Fuze CEO Steve Kokinos the role of executive chairman.
The company announced Doherty as its new CEO on Thursday, about a week after the company said it had raised a new $104 million financing round ahead of its plans for a potential initial public offering in 2018.
Originally known as ThinkingPhones, the company renamed itself last year to Fuze, the name of the cloud-based video conferencing company it acquired in 2015. The company offers a cloud-based unified communications service that provides voice, video and messaging capabilities, allowing companies to replace five to seven disparate services typically. That, in turn, can help companies save up to 50 percent on their communications needs.
"It was a great opportunity for me to get ahead of a great growth story."
Doherty had only joined Dyn, a New Hampshire-based DNS provider, last October, taking over from company founder Jeremy Hitchcock, who stepped down as CEO earlier that year. Around a month after Doherty joined, Oracle announced it was acquiring Dyn — for a reported value of more than $600 million, according to one report.
Before Dyn, Doherty was CEO at networking company BTI Systems, which was acquired by Junpier Systems in 2016, and cybersecurity company Arbor Networks, which was acquired by NetScout in 2015.
"I'm not really a big company person. That’s not my fit," Doherty told me in a phone interview, explaining why he left Dyn to join Fuze. "I like the energy and vitality of smaller companies and fuze is in a fantastic market. It was a great opportunity for me to get ahead of a great growth story."
Kokinos said Fuze brought on Doherty because he has "real operational talent" and experience "running things at scale." In his new role as executive chairman, Kokinos said he will focus on product strategy, merger and acquisition opportunities and investor and analyst relations, as well as "spending time with our customers."
Doherty becoming CEO was "the final piece we felt we needed to make a great run," Kokinos said.
