The People Behind DriveNets: Gil Rom

“The People Behind” is a blog series meant to share stories of the amazing individuals behind DriveNets. From developers and engineers to sales managers, every week we’ll get to the heart of the team behind the disruption of the networking industry, so you can get to know them a little better!

This week meet Gil Rom. Born in Israel, Gil was raised in South Africa, and returned to Israel to fulfill his military service. For the last 8 years, he has been living in Melbourne, Australia.

What motivated you to make the jump to DriveNets?

With 16 years at Cisco, Gil’s last position was serving as the Regional Sales Manager for APAC. Gil said that he couldn’t get away from DriveNets promotions, seeing them on all his media all the time.   “My story about joining DriveNets, really began when this little startup was appearing at our customers as an alternative. That’s when I realized that we’re in big trouble,” shared Gil.

This sparked the idea for Gil to take another look at DriveNets. “Then I saw that Ralph Candiloro joined (joined DriveNets as Senior Vice President APAC after serving as SVP & GM at Juniper Networks) and I knew the little startup meant business.”

Seeing these events take place, Gil wanted to get on board where the industry was going. “DriveNets was releasing the most Innovative & relevant technology and I wanted to be a part of this business,” he said, “It was more than just a bold startup, DriveNets was taking aim to disrupt the networking industry.”

Now, Gil relates to how a growing majority of the customers that he looked after at Cisco are now customers at DriveNets.

Why would Service Providers prefer the DriveNets solution over competitors?

Gil summed up what drew service providers to DriveNets. “First the product is available! It’s a real end-to-end solution that’s up and running, and it’s a carrier grade, tested and approved by the largest Telco’s in the region. Second, I think, the amazing momentum and partnerships that DriveNets is building the industry – whether it’s chipset companies, the hardware ODM manufacturers, the VAR ecosystem, local partners selling the hardware and doing the rack and stacks, the optics companies and of course, DriveNets rounds up the whole package by bringing the software angle as a one-stop-shop.”

With this strong ecosystem, DriveNets has the power necessary to address the needs of the entire market. “DriveNets brings an Innovative approach,” Gil said, “The entire networking world became virtualized. This started from other networking domains, but now it’s in the Transport domain as well. The old vendors simply won’t make the shift because of their lucrative legacy business.”

At the end of the day, by selling a software-based solution to the Telcos or to the Cloud Providers, this means thinking about the whole solution including not only the capabilities of networking, agile deployment and operational simplicity, but also about how to help our customers address new markets and help them stay competitive by creating new revenue streams. “DriveNets is small, agile and fast which makes it innovative, lean, with fast moving and proven technology,” said Gil.

With the ecosystem gaining more and more momentum, even the incumbents vendors are taking notice. Industries change, like what cloud brought to the compute and storage industry. ”It’s simple now, if they don’t take the step, they will end up like an any number of companies that were industry leaders and now are out of that business.”

What is the most exciting part of working at DriveNets?

Gil reflected on his leadership mantra. “It’s all about the culture,” explained, “Everyone here wants to help, no matter what your job title is. No mountain is too high, no mission is too hard. We are in this together.”

This kind of aggressive entrepreneurial style exists across the whole company, helping to push development and sales in tandem. “Like our CEO, Ido Susan says, You don’t go through the door, you go through the window.”

“No one day is like the other.” says Gil, with a big smile.

What three thing people don’t know about you?

• Gil is a great believer in the mantra “Take care of your people and they will take care of your business.”
• Alongside his Career in IT, Gil used to raise show-quality poultry in Israel and formed the first club in Israel.
• Gil is an aspiring Pizzalo who enjoys baking his special Napoletana pizza in a 450c oven in his back yard.

Want to join the fun? Check out our current open positions  https://drivenets.com/careers/