# Amir Khan

> Amir Khan is the San Jose-based co-founder, president and CEO of Alkira, now part of Lumen. A former Cisco and Juniper product leader and Viptela co-founder, he focuses on delivering enterprise networking as an on-demand service.

- **Role:** Co-founder, President and CEO at Alkira, Inc. (a Lumen company)
- **Organizations:** Alkira, Inc., Viptela, Cisco Systems, Juniper Networks, Nortel Networks, Procket Networks, Ford Motor Company
- **Education:** BS in Electrical Engineering, University of Mississippi, MS in Electrical Engineering, University of Colorado Boulder
- **Known for:** Co-founded Viptela, acquired by Cisco in 2017., Co-founded Alkira, acquired by Lumen in 2026., Named inventor on networking patents listed in his public LinkedIn profile.

## Career timeline

- **1984** — Moved to the United States after growing up in Pakistan.
- **1991** — Joined Cisco.
- **2007-2011** — Held enterprise-routing product leadership at Juniper Networks.
- **2012** — Co-founded Viptela and served as its CEO.
- **2017** — Cisco completed its $610 million acquisition of Viptela in cash and assumed equity awards.
- **2018** — Co-founded Alkira with Atif Khan.
- **2020** — Alkira publicly introduced Cloud Services Exchange.
- **2024** — Alkira announced a $100 million Series C led by Tiger Global.
- **2026** — Lumen completed its acquisition of Alkira on July 7.

## Achievements

- Co-founded Viptela, acquired by Cisco in 2017.
- Co-founded Alkira, acquired by Lumen in 2026.
- Named inventor on networking patents listed in his public LinkedIn profile.

## Latest updates

- **2026-10** — Scheduled to speak at ONUG on October 29 about consuming networks in the agentic era; event is upcoming as of October 21.
- **2026-07** — Lumen announced completion of its Alkira acquisition on July 7.
- **2026-05** — Lumen announced an agreement to acquire Alkira for $475 million in cash.
- **2026-03** — Appeared in an Alkira conversation with Maria Martinez about AI and enterprise networking.

## Links

- Website: https://www.alkira.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amir-k-b942b6/
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/akhan2k

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/amir-khan-alkira
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-10-21