Kevin DeNuccio, BA’81
President and CEO
Redback Networks
San Jose, California
Company description: Designs, develops, and markets networking solutions for IP-based services and communications
Employees: 800

Pick the right industry, company, and career path, of course. But, most of all, respect the person you go to work for. That’s the advice Kevin DeNuccio, president and CEO of network-solutions provider Redback, has for anyone who wants to excel in the business world. “You want to work for an up-and-comer,” he explains. “They should care as much about your success as what you can do for theirs.”

DeNuccio found that kind of encouragement in businessman Joseph Tucci, now head of EMC Corporation, a nearly $10 billion provider of products, services, and solutions for digital information management and storage. Based in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, EMC was founded by Richard Egan, E’61, H’95, and Roger Marino, E’61, H’96.

Tucci, who sits on NU’s Board of Overseers, had a big impact on DeNuccio’s career when the latter went to work for him in 1984. “He continued to promote me beyond my experience level, because he believed in my potential,” DeNuccio says. “He just kept saying, ‘You can do it.’”

That motivation, along with hard work and a positive attitude—two more ingredients of success, according to DeNuccio—helped launch a career that includes leadership roles at Wang Laboratories, Unisys, Bell Atlantic Network Integration, Cisco Systems, and now Redback.

Of this work, DeNuccio says he’s most proud of the turnaround he initiated at Redback. When he joined the company, in 2001, it faced enormous challenges. Within five years, it had become one of the top three players in the industry, ranked just behind Cisco and Juniper Networks.

His plans for Redback over the next five years? “I’d like to disrupt that ranking,” DeNuccio says.