Ken Xie


Ken Xie is a Chinese-born American businessman who founded Systems Integration Solutions, NetScreen Technologies, and Fortinet. He serves as CEO of Fortinet, a cybersecurity firm based in Silicon Valley. Xie was previously the CEO of NetScreen, which was acquired by Juniper Networks for $4 billion in 2004. He built the first ASIC-based firewall/VPN appliance in 1996.

Early life and education

Xie was born and raised in China. He enjoyed electrical engineering and repairing televisions and radios as a hobby. He graduated from Tsinghua University with a B.S. and M.S. in electrical engineering, and from Stanford University with an M.S. in electrical engineering.

Career

In 1993, Xie founded a network security company, Systems Integration Solutions. As a tinkerer in his garage in Palo Alto, California, Xie built the first ASIC-based firewall/VPN appliance in 1996. That same year he founded NetScreen Technologies, an online security firm, with Yan Ke and Feng Deng. The company was later acquired by Juniper Networks Inc. for $4 billion. In 2000, Xie left NetScreen to work on building Fortinet alongside his brother Michael Xie, an electrical engineer.

Fortinet

In 2000, Xie and his brother Michael Xie created Fortinet in order to, according to Xie, sell additional security tools modeling both content and applications. Xie has stated that he founded Fortinet because of the need for a much larger footprint for security and the fact that security must be embedded in the end-to-end computing and networking infrastructure. The Xie brothers launched the initial FortiGate products in May 2002. Xie has focused Fortinet on developing a Unified Threat Management approach to information security. Xie serves as Fortinet’s CEO, while his brother is president and chief technology officer. In 2016, Xie led the launch of the Network Security Academy, which trained students in the field of cybersecurity. In June 2018, Xie led the acquisition of Bradford Networks, a lot-focused security firm. Xie represents Fortinet as a founding member and member of the board of directors of the Cyber Threat Alliance. In January 2019, Xie was a discussion leader for the Centre for Cybersecurity’s cyber workforce session at Davos’ World Economic Forum summit.

Awards

For his "contributions to cybersecurity, including network security systems and services," Xie was made a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2013.