Former Cisco and Fastly exec Todd Nightingale steps into his new role at Arista as COO, bringing bold AI-powered networking ambitions.

Todd Nightingale, who calls himself a "networking person," is thrilled to be returning to the networking industry in his new position as president and chief operating officer (COO) of Arista Networks.

Nightingale left the edge cloud startup Fastly Inc., where he was CEO for three years, to join Santa Clara, California-based Arista on July 1. Before that, the seasoned networking expert joined Cisco through its 2012 acquisition of Meraki and worked his way up the ranks for ten years. Before joining Fastly, he was the general manager and executive vice president of Cisco's multibillion-dollar Enterprise Networking and Cloud division.

Returning to the networking scene, Nightingale is hopping right in to piggyback on the momentum Arista has been building for years to advance the business. He told CRN that Arista's experience in creating some of the biggest and most advanced networks in the world makes it stand out in the market. However, this does not imply that the business may only collaborate with the biggest cloud providers and corporations. Nightingale really thinks that Arista's appealing vision for AI-powered networking, together with the performance and dependability it offers, can be applied to every kind of organization.

Nightingale spoke with CRN during his first week of work about why it was time to resume networking, how the market was impacted by macroeconomic and M&A activity, and how he intends to work even harder with partners to get Arista's goods and services in front of customers.