Here are some of the latest executive hirings, promotions, and staff changes that happened in May. If you’d like SDxCentral to report on your company’s movers and shakers, or if you’ve got a tip about layoffs and restructuring, please send the information to Julia King ([email protected]) for inclusion in the monthly Headcount column.

Cloud security unicorn Lacework cut 20% of its workforce, which was translated as “​​some difficult news” by executives on the vendor’s website and comes just 6 months after the firm closed a $1.3 billion funding round. 

“We made the very difficult decision to say goodbye to some of our colleagues, as part of a restructuring and modification to the company plan,” Lacework co-CEOs David Hatfield and Jay Parikh wrote to the Lacework community. The company earlier this year said it employed more than 1,000 people.  

Lacework late last year announced a then record-breaking $1.3 billion funding round, which pushed its valuation to $8.3 billion. CFO Mike Staiger told SDxCentral in an earlier interview that one of the plans for the funding was to grow its workforce.

It can be challenging to find and retain a qualified chief information security officer (CISO), especially for small-sized enterprises with limited resources. As a result, some organizations are now choosing to outsource the job and hire a virtual CISO. 

“Obviously, it’s one of the hottest job markets that we’ve seen in a long, long time, and security is certainly no exception,” Thrive CTO Michael Gray told SDxCentral, adding that there is so much opportunity for CISOs out there, and building a security team is very difficult. “That’s why a lot of people end up wanting to outsource CISO,” he said.

In addition, as more organizations are committing to a remote or hybrid work workforce, a virtual CISO position has becomes an option. 

Ericsson plans to hire 250 people at its current research and development center in Ireland to help develop cloud native products designed to support its 5G products and services.

The infrastructure giant said the jobs will be at its campus in Athlone, Ireland. The open positions include software developers, data scientists, architects, and cloud and mobile communication engineers. Roles will be for cloud native engineers that have specific experience with Kubernetes, Docker, Helm, and HCP, and core programming languages such as Java, C++, JavaScript, Python, and Golang.

VMware announced that Nicole Anasenes has been elected to its board of directors.

Cisco tapped Bill Davenport to serve as a senior director of government affairs in its Washington, D.C., office.

Nokia Chief People Officer Stephanie Werner-Dietz announced she will leave the company.

Zscaler appointed Brendan Castle as chief people officer.

Linden Labs hired Steven Feuling as its first CMO and Peter Capraro as its first CISO. 

LogicGate named Kara Smith as CFO and Caroline Werner as chief people officer. 

Agiloft ​​appointed Kerry Desberg as CMO.

Incode named Allen Ganz VP of business development.

NeoSystems announced Kathy Gibbs as VP of partners and alliances.

ClickUp appointed Briana Ings VP of product. 

Tetrate named Paul Machle as CFO.

NetAbstraction appointed Brian Stone as chief revenue officer.

Styra announced that Dave Wilne has joined the company’s board of directors.

Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 announced Mike Sikorski as its CTO and VP of engineering. 

SmartRent appointed Robyn Young as the company’s first CMO. 

TigerGraph announced Linda Crowe as VP of marketing.

Transposit said Boki Beran will serve as VP of engineering.

Splunk named Katie Bianchi as its SVP and chief customer officer.

Cloudflare hired Carlos Torales Montero as VP and head of sales Latin America.

Avalara named Ee Lyn Khoo as chief people officer.

Ubicquia appointed Antoinette Bush to its board of directors and Heather Ritchie to CMO.

Skyhigh Security announced Diana Massaro as CMO. 

Telstra appointed Noah Drake as president for the Americas.

SADA announced Adam Massey as VP of independent software vendor and marketplace sales.

Protegrity hired Brad Rouse as chief revenue officer. 

Salesforce announced William MacMillan as SVP, security product and program management, BISO, and acquisition integration. 

Infoworks.io named Ram Himmatraopet as SVP of sales. 

Stoplight hired Nicholas Muy as CISO. 

Arelion appointed Scott Nichols as chief commercial officer. 

Snyk announced Adi Sharabani as CTO. 

Hazelcast hired Karen Smith as chief revenue officer and Tamzyn Furse as chief people officer.

Render appointed Alison Baritot as head of people and Josh Weiss as head of finance.

Neo4j announced Chandra Rangan as CMO. 

PKWARE promoted Sarah Fellner to VP of global marketing and promoted Matt Zomboracz to CFO.

Productiv hired Alok Ojha as chief product officer. 

Sigma Computing hired Brian Murphy as chief revenue officer.

Tessian appointed Daniel Kim as CFO.

SonarSource appointed Kevin Thompson to its board of directors.

Twilio hired Joyce Kim as CMO. 

Commercetools promoted Kelly Goetsch to chief strategy officer.

Kyocera appointed Joseph Fuccillo as VP of software and ICT and Donald DuVall as VP of channel sales.

Nitel named Scott Reilly as CFO. 

Query.AI appointed Jeremy Fisher as CTO.

PROS named Grad Conn as CMO. 

Datadobi appointed Manu Heirbaut as VP of engineering.

Alkira announced Ahmed Datoo as CMO, Harbrinder Kang as VP of people and operations, and Kevin Kramer as head of North American sales.

Zylo appointed Wayne Poole as COO.

Illumio named Mario Espinoza as chief product officer.

Domino Data Lab hired Chris Lauren as VP of product and Kjell Carlsson as head of data science strategy and evangelism.  

Databricks appointed Trâm Phi as SVP and general counsel. 

Incorta announced Mike Nader as VP of business analytics solutions.

Reliaquest named Mike Mcpherson as SVP of security operations and Regina Marrow as CIO. 

IBM appointed Kate Woolley as the leader of the multi-billion dollar growth engine for the company. 

Bright Data named Erez Naveh as VP of product.

NEC Corporation of America announced Marc Hebner as SVP and head of enterprise business in the Americas and Al Kelley as VP of channel sales.

AMI named Suzanne Spaulding to its board of directors.

Salesloft appointed Lauren Vaccarello as CMO.

ViewLift announced Shraddha Pednekar as chief experience officer and Sujith Vellat as CTO.

Redpoint Global appointed Ron Sanderson as CISO.

Spruce hired Rachel Sterling as its director of analytics, Kristi Johnson-Noble as its director of people, Juli Doss as its southeast regional sales director, and Kim Sebastian as its east regional sales director.

ServiceTitan appointed Olive Huang as general counsel and Doug Myers as SVP of operations.

Airtable hired Laura Padilla as its new VP of partners.

Alluxio appointed Sridhar Venkatesh as SVP of product.

Avocado Systems hired James Sortino as chief revenue officer.

Fivetran appointed Julie Richardson to its board of directors.

Rubrik hired Michael Mestrovich as CISO.

Mason appointed Brian Hook as CTO. 

Aviatrix announced Michael Welts as CMO. 

Cisco named Sue McKinney as VP of engineering at AppDynamics.

Replicated announced it will cut 50 employees.