As Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT), one of the top 3 network security companies in the world, Ken Xie started his first network security company SIS in 1993, designed software firewall product while he was studying at Stanford University. A few years later, he realized the performance limitations of a software firewall running on PC/server, and then started NetScreen in 1996 as founder, president and CEO. Ken lead NetScreen developed industry’s first ASIC and dedicated hardware systems for high performance firewall and VPNs. NetScreen (NASDAQ: NSCN) later was acquired by Juniper (NASDAQ: JNPR) for $4 billion. In 2000, after recognizing that firewall and VPNs alone cannot stop content and application security attacks such as viruses, intrusions, spam and malicious Web content, Ken founded Fortinet, which pioneered Unified Threat Management (UTM). Fortinet (NASDAQ: FTNT) is market leader in UTM, and completed an initial public offering in November 2009, which was lauded by Renaissance Capital as “2009 IPO of the Year.”
Ken earned an M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University and B.S. and M.S. degrees in Electronic Engineering from Tsinghua University. Ken is a member of National Academy of Engineering for his contributions in cyber-security; a state registered Professional Engineer in Electrical Engineering; and holds certificates of Advanced Project Management, Strategic Decision and Risk Management from Stanford University.
Business success and technology innovation has garnered Ken numerous patents and accolades. In 2013, Frost & Sullivan named Ken as Legends of Silicon Valley, 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” by InfoSecurity cover story in 2011. In 2006, Ken was named Northern California Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst & Young, and Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum and Time Magazine.
