Bangalore: Blue Coat Systems, the technology leader in Web security and WAN optimization solutions, announced that IBM veteran, Venkat Raghavan has joined as senior vice president of research and development.

Its chief executive officer, Greg Clark said Venkat will head the company?s product management and research and development organization, based on his 20 years of experience in delivering world-class enterprise security products and market-leading innovations.

"Venkat arms Blue Coat to deliver a new class of security and optimization solutions to enterprises battling security and business operational risks created by shadow IT systems, applications moving to the cloud and the explosive adoption of BYOD," he said in a press statement .

Raghavan said he was excited to join Blue Coat and looks forward to delivering next generation security and optimization products

Prior to joining Blue Coat, Raghavan led engineering and development for IBM Internet Security Systems portfolio, where he was responsible for worldwide engineering and development of security software and hardware-optimized security appliances.

He also holds an M.B.A. in marketing from George Washington University, an M.S. in Computer Science from Clemson University, and a B.E. in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from PSG College of Technology.