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Juniper loses two key executives

Marguerite Reardon CNET News

Published: 14 Mar 2007 09:16 GMT

Juniper Networks said Tuesday that two executives, including its chief financial officer, resigned on Monday.

The networking and security equipment maker, which competes against Cisco Systems, said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that chief financial officer Bob Dykes and Robert Sturgeon, executive vice president of its enterprise group, resigned "in connection with the ongoing review of the company's growth plans and requirements to achieve the company's desired scale".

During a conference call on Tuesday with Wall Street analysts, chief executive Scott Kriens would not elaborate on why the executives resigned, nor would he comment on how the resignations related to the company's financials going forward. But he did say that neither executive quit over any disagreement relating to the company's operations, policies or practices.

News of the resignation comes a day after Juniper completed a restatement of past financials dating back to 2002. Juniper restated earnings to fix accounting errors tied to its handling of stock option grants.

Dykes was hired in December 2004 from contract manufacturer Flextronics. During his seven-year tenure he helped guide the company's expansion from $500m to $14bn in revenue. Prior to that, Dykes spent nine years as executive vice president and chief financial officer for the security company Symantec, where he helped guide the company to an initial public offering.

Sturgeon joined Juniper in December 2001. Previously, he had been a vice president of customer service for Lucent Technologies.