Kriens began his marketing career with Burroughs Corporation, which merged with Sperry in 1986 to form Unisys, and then worked for Tandem Computers, before becoming a co-founder of telecommunications equipment company StrataCom, Inc. in 1986. From 1986 to 1996 Kriens was vice president of sales and operations, until Stratacom was acquired for $4.5 billion by Cisco.[2]
Crosspoint Venture Partners subsequently recruited Kriens to lead Juniper Networks, naming him CEO in October 1996, where he remained until September 2008. Juniper's market success is largely credited to Kriens.[2][4][5] Juniper's stock rose from $57 per share, at the start of 2000, to an all-time high of $243 per share, in mid-October 2000.[2] In 2008, Kevin Johnson became CEO of Juniper, while Kriens remained as chairman.[6]
Kriens was ranked 463rd on the ForbesExecutive Pay in 2006,[7] 478th in 2007[8] and 454th in 2008[9]
He was the U.S. Winner of the EY Entrepreneur of The Year Award in 2000 with Juniper Networks [10]
