BlogTruly great opportunities are rare, but amid a crazy convergence of leadership and innovation, plus impeccable timing, I find myself wrapping up my first week as Head of Services Go to Market at ExtraHop—a job that feels tailor-made for what I'm truly passionate about.
My role is to look for new ways ExtraHop services can improve the pace of innovation, create a more meaningful customer experience, and bring more value to our partners. I have a diverse security background: I've been a defender, a penetration tester, and a consultant. As an industry veteran, I've seen a lot of hype—but through my realistic (and sometimes snarky) perspective, I've developed a sense for truly effective solutions. This is why my passion for cybersecurity now lies with services—an area where I believe there is broad impact.
As I join ExtraHop, I'm filled with anticipation and excitement for what we're doing here, and how it is fundamentally transforming and changing the world around us. While this may sound like hyperbole to some, I believe the right technology can transform society and everything around it—but it has to be truly good. Truly good means having a culture, a mission, and a purpose that extends beyond profit and market share.
As I reflect on twenty-five years in cybersecurity and technology, I think back to all the products that have made a truly positive, lasting impact, and ponder what separates these from mere hype: The good ones are often the culmination of leadership, ideas, demand, and timing. These four elements are what drew me to ExtraHop.
Leadership: I believe the leadership team at ExtraHop is a formidable one. They are mission-minded, understand markets and timing, and they have the track record to prove it. This leadership team is as admired as it is respected; both by peers and the employees whose lives they impact beyond their paycheck. I feel very fortunate to be admitted into their ranks, to further the mission.
Ideas: The basis for the technology comes from the minds of two brilliant innovators, and they're still driving market leadership today. The brilliant thing about ExtraHop technology is that it doesn't conveniently fit into an analyst category. It provides value across the technology chain from CIO to CISO, and everywhere in between. The network is the one piece of technology that can't be bypassed—and if you ask the right questions of your data, you can get incredible value from the answers. In this aspect, ExtraHop is second to none.
Demand: If you want to understand the market demand for what ExtraHop does, look around you. Read your news feeds and talk to CISOs and CIOs the world over. The cybersecurity space is littered with "solutions" that often create more work for an already overworked IT organization. The market is screaming for simplicity, cost optimization, and effectiveness in identifying, protecting, detecting, responding to, and recovering from cyberattacks. ExtraHop's unique product and services answer that call.
Timing: It's been said that timing is everything. I couldn't agree more if I had said it myself. So right now is the time to develop and revolutionize the way that IT and Security organizations think about gaining visibility and protecting their assets on the network—whether that network is a physical piece of wire, or in the virtual public cloud. As companies look at tightening their budgets, consolidating inefficient tool sets, and implementing technology that is both innovative and simple, now is the right time.
With the markers of transformative technology in place, I join ExtraHop with a specialization in services and strategy—and that feels like a perfect fit. Services offerings help customers get the most value from their investments, which is why I believe that services engagement through all aspects of a customer's journey is key to building trust and ensuring long-term success. The opportunity to look across the company everywhere services engage and work with the mission-driven leaders at ExtraHop is an opportunity I simply could not pass up. I'm blessed to be a member of the team, and I look forward to the journey.
