Venafi Appoints Patrick Dennis as New CEO

Industry Veteran Will Help Scale and Lead Company Through its Next Phase of Growth and Innovation as the Leader in Machine Identity Management

Venafi, the inventor of machine identity management, today announced that Patrick Dennis has joined the executive team as chief executive officer (CEO). Patrick’s appointment comes on the heels of Venafi’s more than 150% year-over-year growth in its global Software as a Service (SaaS) business and recognition on Inc.’s 2023 Best in Business List, underscoring the company’s mission to future-proof leading organizations by delivering cutting-edge SaaS solutions that secure the heart of their digital infrastructure: machine identities.

“Major industry trends – from the rapid advancements in quantum computing to the mainstream emergence of deep fakes and the arms race afoot to continually accelerate the capabilities of AI – are what caught my attention with Venafi. The company has a powerful solution and strategy for combating these types of challenges,” said Dennis. “With the strongest backing in the security industry by Thoma Bravo, I have full confidence that we are set up for success as we take on these big challenges in 2024 and beyond.”

Patrick brings 25 years of experience from marquee technology leaders including EMC, Oracle, Guidance Software and most recently, ExtraHop. At EMC, he was the COO and led an $11 billion business unit; he was the CEO at Guidance Software, which was acquired by OpenText; and he doubled the size of ExtraHop during his most recent tenure, ushering the company to be named a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Network Analysis And Visibility, Q2 2023. He also brings valuable private equity experience as the former Operating Executive at Vector Capital.

“Patrick’s market expertise from big tech to PE and security will be instrumental in leading Venafi through the company’s next phase of growth and innovation as it continues on its journey as the most modern, connected and trusted leader in machine identity management,” said Chip Virnig, partner at Thoma Bravo. “With Patrick at the helm, the team will be able to build on its previous successes and scale the company to new heights, solving some of the most complex challenges CISOs and business leaders are facing today. Market drivers like the post-quantum world, cloud native and AI are creating an immense addressable market that we’re excited to take on together.”

After successfully leading the company for the past 14 years to its market leadership position, Jeff Hudson will move out of his daily operating role as Venafi’s CEO to take on the new role of CEO Emeritus. He will continue to work with the world-wide CISO and CIO community to shape a safe and secure world. Jeff and the Venafi team created the machine identity management category based on their vision for cybersecurity and in collaboration with dozens of the world’s most innovative CISOs.

“Patrick will take the company to the next level. The foundation has been laid, and under his leadership, Venafi will increase its leading role in managing machine identities, which the world needs now more than ever,” said Hudson.

Learn more about Patrick in this Q&A blog post: https://venafi.com/blog/meet-our-new-ceo-ushering-in-a-new-era-of-innovation-and-advancement.

About Venafi

Venafi is the cybersecurity market leader in machine identity management. From the ground to the cloud, Venafi solutions manage and protect identities for all types of machines—from physical and IoT devices to software applications, APIs and containers. Venafi provides global visibility, lifecycle automation and actionable intelligence for all machine identity types and the security and reliability risks associated with them.

With more than 30 patents, Venafi delivers innovative machine identity management solutions for the world's most demanding, security-conscious organizations and government agencies, including the top five U.S. health insurers, top five U.S. airlines, top four payment card issuers and top four U.S. banks. As a leading provider of open source machine identity management solutions, its open source cert-manager project is downloaded more than 1.5 million times a day. For more information, visit https://venafi.com/.

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