Russell Winter – new head of global business development at Loadbalancer.org. Picture by Deep South Media head of visual Paul Collins.
A Portsmouth-based technology firm has continued its recent profitable growth by recruiting a new head of global business development.
Loadbalancer.org, a provider of loadbalancers to the global IT community, welcomes Russell Winter to its team to expand worldwide sales.
Worldwide sales at the company, which has achieved 12,000 deployments in 74 countries, have increased 30% a year since being founded in 2003 by owners Malcolm and Karen Turnbull.
With offices in the US, Canada and Germany, Loadbalancer.org reminds Russell, a former venture capitalist, of his past.
He said: “I feel like I’m back in Silicon Valley with another exciting, rapidly growing and already successful software company.
“What Loadbalancer.org does, and does extremely well, is at the very heart of Information Technology as a whole and the demand for such a tried-and-tested tool as theirs will only go up.”
Loadbalancers, also known as Application Delivery Controllers (ADCs) in the IT industry, manage activity on IT systems to prevent collapses under the strain of sudden bursts of traffic or equipment failures, enabling everyday websites to provide fast and reliable browsing for consumers.
For Russell, whose time in the US included helping to sell internet startup SideStep for over $200m, his new role at Loadbalancer.org presents him with a unique challenge.
He said: “This company has done phenomenally well by selling its technology by word-of-mouth alone. I’m here to put some extra fuel in the rocket.
“I’ll mainly be working on adding more technology partnerships, building closer ties with IT decision-makers in all types of organisations and generating greater awareness of the brand.”
Owner Malcolm Turnbull, who launched an industry-first cloud load balancing solution for Amazon Web Services in 2009, believes the addition of Russell to the team is the start of an exciting new phase of growth.
He said: “Russell’s arrival at Loadbalancer.org is fantastic for us. He was very successful in Silicon Valley and his passion for IT really shines through, which bodes well.
“The main thing for us is to build up at a steady pace because we have always been very customer focused. We spend a lot of time making sure our load balancers work perfectly and we are known for our industry-leading service levels.”
Russell added: “My background has taught me how to spot special companies and Malcolm and Karen’s concern for employees and customers is second-to-none, which has translated into consistently stellar results.”
Loadbalancer.org recently moved into a new £1.4m global corporate headquarters at Compass House, Portsmouth, by the M275 city gateway.
High-profile customers of Loadbalancer.org include NASA, the BBC, the United States Postal Service, BT, Mercedes Benz, ASOS, Vodafone, SEGA, Estee Lauder, O2, Bacardi, River Island, the NHS, Premier Inn, Verizon and Selfridges & Co.
