Keysight Technologies announced that Satish Dhanasekaran will succeed Mike Gasparian as president of the Communications Solutions Group, effective immediately. Gasparian, who is retiring, will remain an advisor until the end of the year, assisting with the transition.

Keysight also announced the addition of Marie Hattar to its executive team as Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). She held that position for Ixia, which was recently acquired by Keysight.

Satish Dhanasekaran

Dhanasekaran was previously the vice president and general manager of the Wireless Devices and Operators unit within the Communications Solutions Group. He joined the Americas sales organization of Agilent Technologies in 2006, leading customer engagements and the application engineering organization. He subsequently served as the Microwave and Communications Division marketing manager and general manager of the Mobile Broadband organization. Dhanasekaran started his career with Motorola, designing and leading the development of first-generation smart phone devices.

Ron Nersesian, Keysight's president and chief executive officer, said “Satish has driven many strategic collaborations with our top market-making customers around the globe, which enabled them to gain time-to-market advantages. Satish is an extremely customer focused, high energy and results-oriented leader.

Marie Hattar

Hattar has more than 20 years of marketing leadership experience spanning the security, routing, switching, telecom and mobility markets. Before becoming CMO of Ixia, she held the same position at Check Point Software Technologies, served as vice president at Cisco and held senior marketing positions at Nortel Networks, Alteon WebSystems and Shasta Networks.

Nersesian said, “Ixia's fresh, innovative approach to marketing is exactly the direction we want to take Keysight. Marie Hattar led the transformation of marketing at Ixia, and we are delighted that she has agreed to be Keysight's first CMO. Marie is a proven marketing strategist, and her experience in fast-moving technology companies makes her the ideal leader to drive our brand and position us for the future. As we have transformed our company for growth, it's important that customers understand our broadened value.”

Completing the acquisition of Ixia to accelerate Keysight's strategies for growth and creating the CMO role marks an inflection point for Keysight. The company’s growth strategies include expanding software solutions and end-to-end software-centric test offerings to better serve evolving communications development lifecycles, while also strengthening Ixia's advancing leadership position in the rapidly-growing visibility and security markets.

In announcing the changes, Nersesian said, “I also thank Mike Gasparian for the decades of results he has delivered for Keysight, Agilent and Hewlett-Packard. Most recently, in addition to leading Keysight's Communications Solutions Group, Mike has led the company's marketing function, including naming and launching Keysight as an independent public company. I wish Mike the very best in his future.”