Hamilton has led Blue Planet Software since its incorporation as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Ciena in 2019. Ciena created this separate division to drive added focus on a key element of its Adaptive Network strategy, and to enable greater business independence, including with respect to Blue Planet’s practices, go-to-market strategy, customer engagement and commercial model.

In a span of three years, Hamilton has scaled Blue Planet’s global business driving annual sales of $100M – with Blue Planet software selected by over 200 global customers including Tier-1 Communications Service Providers such as Comcast, Dish Network, BT and Telefonica, as well as many Fortune 500 Enterprises and global Data Center Operators. Hamilton has led Blue Planet through a period of significant organic and inorganic investment, including the acquisitions of Packet Design, Don River, and Centina Systems, which together with Blue Planet’s original orchestration and related software platforms have come together to create one of the industry’s most complete and powerful software suites capable of enabling Blue Planet’s “closed loop automation” vision.

The Blue Planet division today operates as the software-centric business of Ciena, targeting growth in the automation market with a global team of 700 sales professionals, solution architects, product managers, engineers, and finance, commercial and operational support functions, as well as a full team of delivery and support experts who configure and support the Blue Planet Automation Suite in a variety of customer solutions.

Prior to his current role, Hamilton served as the Corporate Vice President, Professional Services, for Juniper Networks and completed a 11-year career at Cisco Systems, during which time he oversaw the growth of Cisco’s managed services business from $80M/year to $500M/year. While at Cisco, Hamilton led services organizations from each of Cisco’s service lines – as the GM for Cisco Systems Cloud and Managed Services business, Cisco Managed Security Service business, Professional Services Leader for their Global Enterprise Accounts, and the combined PS Enterprise business and Technical Services organization in the Europe, Middle East, Africa and Russia (EMEAR) region. Hamilton has effectively worked and lived in EMEA and Asia and has served all of Cisco’s developed and developing markets.

Before joining Cisco, Hamilton was Senior Vice President and CIO of The DFS Group (a division of LVMH Group), a luxury retailer catering to the traveling audience. Previously, he led the Applications and Technology Services team that serviced 135 stores throughout the United States for Cost Plus World Market, and he led the applications development team for Discovery Channel’s consumer division.

Hamilton holds a bachelor’s degree in information systems from the University of Phoenix and a master’s degree in software engineering from Golden Gate University. A licensed commercial pilot and flight instructor, he also holds an undergraduate degree in aeronautics.

Rick Hamilton is Senior Vice President of Blue Planet Software, a division of Ciena. Mr. Hamilton is responsible for Ciena’s Blue Planet software platform and global services organization, including consulting and support services for designing, deploying, managing, and maintaining communications networks.