Unified Communications Featured Article

Vonage Appoints New Member to Board of Directors

By Alicia Young
Web Editor

Vonage (News - Alert) Holdings Corp. is a provider of unified communications services for businesses. The company is dedicated to transforming the way people work and businesses operate through a portfolio of cloud-based communications solutions. These solutions are meant to enable internal collaboration among employees, while also keeping companies closely connected to their customers no matter which device they are using.

Since it provides such important UC services, it’s important for Vonage to have the right people on its Board of Directors. That’s why the company has decided to elect Hamid Akhavan as the Board’s newest member.

Akhavan was an obvious choice for the appointment due to his 30 years of Telecom, Media and technology (TMT) experience. He is no stranger to leadership positions, with both CEO and Board of Director experience under his belt at a variety of organizations. He has held leadership roles in large public corporations, private equity-funded companies, and even start-ups. With the addition of Akhavan, Vonage's Board will be composed of nine diverse, highly qualified directors, six of whom joined the Board in the last five years and eight of whom are independent.

Currently, Akhavan is a partner at Long Arc Capital, a private equity firm specializing in disruptive technology investments.  In this role, he has been focusing on innovation and new services in cybersecurity, FinTech and other high growth areas. Prior to this position, he was CEO of Unify, Inc., a $2 billion private equity-backed joint venture between the Gores Group and Siemens (News - Alert). There, he took charge of restructuring efforts to reposition the company from a traditional PBX manufacturer to a cloud-based provider of enterprise unified communications solutions.

Vonage is looking forward to Akhavan joining the Board of Directors, with Alan Masarek, Vonage Chief Executive Officer, saying, “We are thrilled to welcome Hamid to the Vonage Board of Directors. His deep and versatile technology, enterprise and communications experience will add significant strategic insight to our board…Hamid's proven ability to find new sources of growth and to look ahead for new opportunities in the rapidly evolving communications industry will serve Vonage well as we continue on our journey to become the global leader in cloud communications for business.”