Redback gets new CEO

Redback Networks yesterday named former Cisco Systems executive Kevin DeNuccio as its president and CEO. He is the metro equipment vendor’s third CEO in less than 14 months.

Pierre Lamond, who had been serving as chairman and interim CEO as Redback searched for a new top executive during the last three months, will remain as chairman.

As senior vice president of worldwide service-provider operations at Cisco, DeNuccio is intimately familiar with the optical edge router products that will be the greatest challenge for Redback’s SmartEdge IP router product, which is in trials with more than 10 carriers.

“Cisco’s really the only player in that market, so there’s plenty of room for competition and the [SmartEdge] product’s going to have an exciting entry there,” DeNuccio said. “It’s a more intelligent platform, I think.”

DeNuccio was similarly optimistic about the rest of Redback.

“Redback has the people, the technology and the customers to be a large player in the industry,” DeNuccio said.

Such an outcome would be welcome at Redback, which has suffered through a series of disappointing quarters and significant turnover in the executive ranks. Last month, the company cut top executives salaries by 25% in exchange for company stock.

Redback’s stock price dropped almost 5% today to close at $3.97 per share--more than 97% less than its high of $169.81 per share 11 months ago.

With the announcement of DeNuccio—an executive at Bell Atlantic and Unisys prior to joining Cisco six years ago--Redback’s has a permanent CEO for the first time since former CEO Vivek Ragavan resigned under pressure in May, just nine months after taking the job. Ragavan recently was named CEO of Atrica.