Joost, the internet TV service founded by the internet entrepreneurs behind Skype, has appointed Mike Volpi, a heavyweight former Cisco executive, as chief executive officer.

Mr Volpi, considered until recently as a possible successor to the Cisco chief executive John Chambers, replaces Fredrik de Wahl, who will remain at Joost as chief strategy officer.

Mr Volpi quit Cisco, which makes most of its money from the hardware that supports the internet, in February after 13 years with Silicon Valley’s largest company.

During his time with Cisco, which has itself recently made a big push into online video, a market it says will be worth tens of billion of dollars, he was known as a dealmaker in the mergers and acquisitions market, and he most recently managed Cisco’s key routing and service provider group.

Mr Volpi called Joost “a product with the potential to change the way video is enjoyed around the world.”

Joost was co-founded and is majority-owned by Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom, the two entrepreneurs who sold Skype, their internet telephony service, to eBay for $2.6 billion.

The pair were also behind Kazaa, the peer-to-peer file sharing system that drew the ire of music companies who claimed it was a platform for piracy on a scale never before seen

Joost has already secured deals with content providers including Viacom and CBS. It has also attracted advertising from groups including Coca-Cola, Nike and Microsoft.

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