Cato Networks has named Eyal Heiman as the firm’s new chief technology officer.

Heiman joined the secure access service edge (SASE) firm in 2019, from Akamai Technologies.

He spent more than six years serving as Cato’s VP for engineering, overseeing developers across the company’s headquarters in Tel Aviv and its recently expanded research and development facility in Prague.

New Tech Europe reported the promotion, but no official line was put out by Cato or by Heiman on LinkedIn. A company spokesperson confirmed Heiman was promoted in an email to SDxCentral, and he is now listed as CTO on the leadership section of Cato’s website.

Heiman’s promotion comes amid a period of expansion for the Israeli unicorn.

The firm raised $359 million in a funding round last month, securing backing from the likes of Vitruvian Partners and ION Crossover Partners to take its valuation to more than $4.8 billion.

The recently raised cash will be used to add new capabilities to its flagship cloud-based network platform, including IoT security, SD-WAN, and zero-trust network access (ZTNA).

Cato is also looking to integrate AI into its workflow, with plans to extend support for AI-powered use cases, a move CEO Shlomo Kramer likened to “embedding AI into the DNA of infrastructure itself.”

The company was founded in 2015 by Kramer, who also founded cybersecurity firm Check Point, alongside Gur Shatz, the co-founder of networking company Incapsula.

On top of plans for AI additions, Cato integrated Amazon Bedrock into its SASE Cloud platform earlier this year, which lets users develop custom foundation models.

Cato has already received recognition for its AI work from Gartner in the analyst firm’s latest SASE provider rankings. The vendor was lauded for its agentic AI plans, as well as its above-average customer experience, and marketing strategy targeted at larger enterprise customers.