SASE Industry Pioneer and Former Gartner Distinguished Analyst Joe Skorupa Joins MEF Technology Advisory Board

Visionary who helped define the SASE market to provide advisory expertise and will be a featured speaker in upcoming SASE certification webinar

/EIN News/ -- LOS ANGELES, March 26, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- MEF, a global industry association of enterprises and network, cloud, security, and technology providers accelerating enterprise digital transformation, today announced that Joe Skorupa, Strategic Advisor and former Gartner Research VP and Distinguished Analyst, has joined its Technology Advisory Board (TAB). Skorupa is widely recognized as one of the two Gartner analysts who defined the $28B SASE market, transforming the network security and SD-WAN landscape and giving rise to the industry’s most critical cybersecurity architecture for modern enterprises.

Skorupa’s appointment to the TAB, which provides strategic guidance and technology perspectives to MEF’s leadership, underscores MEF’s commitment to advancing SASE solutions and certification. He joins a select group of senior executives and industry experts from leading global technology companies including Blue Planet, Cisco, Infosys, Netcracker Technology, Nile, Palo Alto Networks, Prodapt, Salesforce, ServiceNow, Spirent Communications, VMWare, and Versa Networks.

“Joining MEF’s TAB is an exciting opportunity to help shape the future of secure, high-performing networking,” said Joe Skorupa, Strategic Advisor and Former Gartner Distinguished Analyst. “As cyber threats intensify and enterprise demands evolve, MEF’s SASE certification program plays a vital role in helping service and technology providers deliver trusted solutions that enterprises can confidently deploy.”

MEF’s SASE Certification Program, developed in partnership with CyberRatings.org, rigorously validates the cyber defense effectiveness and application performance of SASE solutions including SD-WAN, Security Service Edge (SSE), and Zero Trust (ZT) capabilities. ​Providers achieving all three earn MEF’s comprehensive SASE certification, demonstrating their ability to meet stringent performance, security, interoperability, and scalability requirements.

“Joe Skorupa’s groundbreaking work defining SASE has been foundational to the industry,” said Pascal Menezes, Chief Technology Officer, MEF. “We are honored to welcome him to our TAB as we continue driving the industry’s only independent SASE certification program and empowering enterprises with validated solutions that withstand today’s rising cybersecurity threats.”

Join the Conversation: Gain a Competitive Edge with MEF-Certified SASE & SD-WAN
Skorupa will join MEF CTO Pascal Menezes and Principal Analyst Stan Hubbard, and Ian Foo, CTO and EVP of Product, CyberRatings.org, as a featured speaker in MEF’s upcoming webinar “Gain a Competitive Edge with MEF-Certified SASE & SD-WAN,” taking place Tuesday, April 22 at 7am PST / 10am EST. The session will explore how certification streamlines procurement, accelerates sales cycles, and validates resilience and application performance. Attendees will learn how MEF-certified solutions can unlock new business opportunities in an increasingly competitive and security-conscious market. Register for the webinar here.

For more information about MEF visit www.MEF.net. Learn more about MEF’s SASE certification program and read the State of the Industry report on SASE here. MEF’s NaaS Industry Blueprint is available for download at MEF.net/NaaS.

About MEF
MEF is a global consortium of enterprise and service, cloud, cybersecurity, and technology providers collaborating to accelerate enterprise digital transformation. It delivers standards-based frameworks, services, technologies, APIs, and certification programs to enable Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) across an automated ecosystem. MEF is the defining authority for certified Lifecycle Service Orchestration (LSO) business and operational APIs and Carrier Ethernet, SASE, SD-WAN, Zero Trust, and Security Service Edge (SSE) technologies and services. MEF's Global NaaS Event (GNE) convenes industry leaders building and delivering the next generation of NaaS solutions. For more information about MEF, visit MEF.net and follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube. 

Media Contact:
Melissa Power
MEF
pr@mef.net

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/4b9f2197-cc78-4667-a54d-732b069ca780