"The only constant in this world is change and this truth is especially accentuated in the high-tech industry. My education at Purdue in the classrooms of electrical engineering has armed me with the fundamental knowledge that has helped me adapt and innovate in the changing world of technology."

 

Keerti Melkote earned his MSEE from Purdue University in 1993 and a degree from India's Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad, in 1991. Melkote is Aruba Network's cofounder and chief technology officer and is responsible for product management. Addressing the irreversible trend towards mobility was the primary motivation behind the founding of Aruba Networks — how would enterprise computing and communications change if everyone were mobile? Venture capital firms Matrix Partners and Sequoia Capital invested in Aruba in February 2002, the year the company was incorporated. The company's first prototype booted up in October 2002; the first customer demonstrations were given in January 2003; and the first customer shipments were made in June 2003. In March 2007 Aruba Networks had its initial public offering. Today, the company has established a leadership position in a rapidly growing market with 350 employees and approximately $173 million in sales. Under Melkote's leadership, Aruba won the Network World's "Best of the Test" 2009 Award for its Airwave Wireless Management Suite and was named a "Rising Star" in Deloitte & Touche USA LLP's Technology Fast 50 programs in 2007. Prior to founding Aruba Networks, Melkote held senior management positions at Tahoe Networks, a cellular/3G data networking systems company now part of Nokia, and Shasta Networks, a broadband IP subscriber management systems company now part of Nortel. Melkote was at Cisco Systems during the LAN switching era in the mid-1990s. Before Cisco, he was responsible for deploying high-performance LAN and ATM backbone infrastructure at Intel.