With a focus on eradicating siloed threat detection in the hybrid attack landscapes of modern, artificial intellegence (AI)-focused IT environments, Vectra AI broke new ground and hired a chief product officer (CPO) to its leadership team, Jeff Reed.

As CPO at extended detection and response (XDR) vendor Vectra AI, Reed will be responsible for expanding the company’s strategy across all product initiatives, including engineering, product management, product and technical marketing and customer support. He will oversee Vectra AI’s operations and guide the company’s strategic direction.

“By creating the chief product officer role, Vectra AI is underscoring its commitment to delivering the best-in-class security solution on the market,” Reed said. “I look forward to bringing my experience in cloud, networking and identity to help ensure customers and their SOC teams are provided the most efficacious tools needed to drive efficiency and reduce cybersecurity risk,” he said.

“Jeff brings diverse expertise and rich experience to our team at a time when AI is redefining how we detect threats and prioritize attacks,” Vectra AI CEO and President Hitesh Sheth said.

Reed is joining Vectra AI after a stint at Google Cloud, where he served as VP of Product for Cloud Security and lead the product team for Google’s Kubernetes engine Anthos and its serverless portfolio.

Before joining Google Cloud in 2020, Reed spent more than a decade at Cisco as SVP of Product Management for the vendor’s $16 billion enterprise networking business. He also served as Cisco SVP and GM of cloud and network security.

Earlier in his career, Reed held senior roles in product development, alliances and business development at large enterprise software companies like Symantec.

“I look forward to working closely with Jeff as we continue to set the new standard for threat detection and response while helping teams manage and reduce their growing workloads,” Sheth said.

This exec snag from Google Cloud signals an era of momentum for Vectra AI. Last summer the vendor launched its Vectra AI platform, and this year it launched Vectra MXDR as an always available managed XDR service designed to thwart hybrid attacks.

California-based Vectra AI has raised a total of $535 million over nine rounds of funding, with a post money valuation of $1.2 billion following the most recent Series F round in 2021.