Akamai’s president and chief executive officer Paul Sagan will join the board of directors of EMC. In a statement issued this morning, Hopkinton, MA-based EMC billed Sagan’s presence as a great fit, both for the knowledge he brings about information technology in general, but also for his experience with Internet-based businesses and services—an area of increasing interest for the company.
In addition to serving on EMC’s board, Sagan will join the company’s Mergers and Acquisitions Committee. “Paul’s success as CEO of a fast-growing, industry-leading S&P 500 company combined with his extensive knowledge of Internet-based technologies and business models make him an ideal and strong addition to our Board,” EMC chairman and CEO Joe Tucci said in the statement.
Sagan does seem a natural fit for the EMC board. Akamai and EMC are two of the world’s top information technology infrastructure companies—EMC is a leader in storage, security, and content management, and Akamai is the leading Internet content distribution company. EMC spokesperson Patrick Cooley stressed that Sagan’s joining the board was not part of any other arrangement between the two firms, however. “The excitement is that as a technologist he brings a strong background that will be very beneficial to both the board and the M&A committee,” said Cooley. “It’ll just be an asset for EMC moving forward.”
Cambridge-based Akamai recently joined Fortune’s list of fastest-growing companies, according to the EMC press release. EMC itself has been growing rapidly, in part thanks to more than 30 acquisitions over the last four years, including October’s acquisition of Utah-based Berkeley Data Systems, owner of online-backup service Mozy. With quite a few recent acquisitions under his own belt at Akamai, including Speedera, Red Swoosh, and Netli, Sagan’s appointment to EMC’s M&A committee could be a sign that the company will remain active on that front, even as it builds its internal innovation efforts.
