The start of Q1 2026 has seen several CEO hires across the channel. Organizations, both large and small, have added new leaders to help drive growth for their enterprises.
Take a look at the new hires across the channel below, and be sure to check out Part 1 of the January Leadership Recaps to learn more about the new chief product officer and chief customer officer roles added by organizations.
New CEOs take the helm at several companies
Structured hires new CEO in Stacey Epstein
Structured, an AI-native partner marketing automation platform for global enterprises, has found a new CEO with Stacey Epstein stepping into the position.
Epstein is succeeding the founder and former CEO, Daniel Nissa,n in the role. She brings decades of enterprise software leadership experience to the role.
Prior to joining Structured, Epstein held senior marketing leadership roles, including serving as CMO at SuccessFactors.
“Structured already powers some of the world’s most sophisticated ecosystems, including IBM, Google, Zoom, Dell, and ServiceNow,” said Epstein. “My goal is to scale that vision with operational focus, customer obsession, and relentless execution. The new native-AI platform we’re rolling out in Q1 is purpose-built for the future of the ecosystem. It will drive stronger ROI for our customers and unlock new value for every partner across the chain.”
Arkstone names Ian Campbell as CEO
Arkstone Medical Solutions, a biotechnology company, is announcing the appointment of Ian Campbell as its new CEO.
Campbell most recently served as CEO of OnScale, a cloud-native simulation company, and brings over two decades of leadership experience that spans enterprise software, advanced engineering platforms, and product development.
“Ian is a proven leader with a rare ability to scale technically complex problems and successfully guide organizations through transformational growth and acquisition,” said Ari Frenkel, MD, MPH, Chief Science Officer of Arkstone. “His experience building world-class teams, driving product innovation, and executing at the highest levels will be instrumental as Arkstone enters its next phase.”
Additionally, prior to OnScale, Campbell was the founding CEO at NextInput, where he led all R&D and product development for the company’s ForceTouch solutions.
SecurityBridge finds new CEO in Jesper Zerlang
SecurityBridge, a provider of a SAP-native cybersecurity platform, has tapped Jesper Zerlang as CEO.
“We have initiated this exciting transition over the past 18 months and look forward to contributing to roles that enhance our technical focus and customer impact,” said co-founder Ivan Mans. “SecurityBridge has significant opportunities ahead, and this move puts the company in a strong position for the next phase.”
Zerlang is transitioning from his position as Chairman of the Board, a position he held for the past year. Zerlang brings over 25 years of experience in the IT industry, including 15 years as CEO of LogPoint.
“Together, we have made SecurityBridge the most innovative cybersecurity solution provider for SAP, thereby establishing a foundation and a clear mission,” said SecurityBridge co-founder Christoph Nagy. “Now, with this transition, it’s time to strengthen the company’s ability to expand globally while allowing us to focus on the areas where we create the greatest value for our customers: product leadership, innovation, and engagement within the SAP ecosystem.”
Financial leaders join security-focused vendors
Coro names Eyal Hen as CFO
Coro, a cybersecurity platform, has tapped Eyal Hen as the company’s new CFO.
Hen will be charged with Coro’s global finance organization, bringing finance and operating executive experience across capital formation, mergers and acquisitions, and operational leadership for global organizations.
“As Coro grows globally, we’re deliberately investing in leadership that brings exactly what we need right now: public-company financial discipline combined with operational experience scaling global teams,” said Joe Sykora, CEO of Coro. “Eyal’s ability to align capital strategy with execution gives us the confidence to scale faster while maintaining the rigor, focus, and operational discipline required for our next phase of growth.”
Before joining Coro, Hen served as CFO of Rekor Systems, a provider of AI-powered roadway intelligence solutions for transportation management and public safety.
Trulioo hires Craig McDonald as CRO
Craig McDonald has been named the new CRO of Trulioo, an onboarding platform that delivers identity verification, fraud prevention, and credit decisioning.
McDonald will lead the global revenue organization to oversee sales, customer success, and go-to-market strategies.
“Trulioo is coming off a period of phenomenal growth, and we’ve reached a critical point in our evolution,” said Vicky Bindra, Trulioo CEO. “As demand accelerates, the time is right to broaden our capabilities and sharpen our focus on helping global enterprises combat financial crime across onboarding and ongoing transactions. Strengthening our revenue leadership is key to ensuring Trulioo is the partner of choice for the industries we serve, and we’re delighted to welcome Craig to the leadership team to help lead this next phase of growth.”
McDonald has previously served as chief business officer at Trustly and held leadership roles at MoneyGram, Nexxo Financial, and Valista/iPIN.
RecordPoint appoints Dean Gonsowski as CRO and Craig Taylor as Director of Partners
RecordPoint, a data and AI governance platform, is making two senior-level appointments, naming a new CRO and a Director of Partners.
Dean Gonsowski will take over as CRO, joining RecordPoint after serving in senior leadership roles at information governance firms, including Gimmal and Active Navigation.
Craig Taylor will be joining the company as its new Director of Partners, after serving in roles in pre-sales, post-sales delivery, customer success, and partnerships at organizations, including OneTrust and VMware.
“After years of failed AI pilots, companies are learning that trusted data is key to unlocking AI innovation,” said Anthony Woodward, RecordPoint CEO. “Dean and Craig will play key roles in addressing a market hungry for solutions and fostering a partner ecosystem.”
These moves come after RecordPoint recently added Brett Hooker as the company’s first Chief Operating Officer.
C3 names new Chief Growth Officer and CRO
C3 Integrated Solutions is expanding its leadership team by adding Bill Wootton for the newly created role of Chief Growth Officer, and Mike Nestor is being promoted to Chief Revenue Officer (CRO).
Wootten, in his new role, will focus on channel strategy, partnership, and inorganic growth initiatives. Nestor, meanwhile, will oversee revenue execution across the organization, along with overseeing marketing, sales operations, and inside sales in addition to leading the sales organization. Nestor will also lead C3’s efforts to align go-to-market execution with customer demand and operational delivery.
“Our focus in 2025 was on maturity across the sales organization,” said Nestor. “That meant validating our services, strengthening operational discipline, and building a marketing foundation that reflects the reality of what contractors are facing. Our experience, the maturity of our solutions, and the investments we’ve made in scalability position us to capture this demand and support this critical need.”
These moves come as the U.S. Department of Defense begins to implement the phased enforcement of the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC).
Keyfactor appoints Michael Volanoski as new President and CRO
Keyfactor, a digital trust provider for modern enterprise organizations, has named Michael Volanoski as President & Chief Revenue Officer (CRO).
In his new role, Volanoski will lead the company’s global revenue organization, including sales, marketing, and channel.
“We are at an inflection point in the security market,” said Jordan Rackie, CEO of Keyfactor. “The convergence of quantum computing, agentic AI, and emerging regulatory requirements is fundamentally changing how enterprises must think about cryptography and digital trust. Keyfactor enters this moment from a position of strength. We’ve built a category-leading business and delivered the strongest year in our history. Bringing in a leader of Mike’s caliber reflects our decision to get more aggressive – to scale faster and further separate ourselves from the rest of the market.”
Prior to joining Keyfactor, Volanoski served as Executive Vice President and CRO at Q2, where he oversaw sales, marketing, customer success, revenue operations, and partner ecosystems. He has also held senior leadership roles at Microsoft, Market Logic Software, SAP, JPMorgan Chase, and Citigroup.
Channel-focused leaders join vendors and service providers
Portnox names Kristen Knight as new VP of Channel Sales
Portnox, an organization that delivers cloud-native, universal zero-trust access control purpose-built for organizations embracing zero-trust security, is launching a new global channel partner program and hiring a new VP of Channel Sales to go along with it.
Kristen Knight joins the company as the new VP of Channel Sales, bringing more than a decade of experience building and scaling security channel ecosystems at Barracuda and Mimecast.
“Organizations are facing a false tradeoff: move fast with digital transformation and accept credential-based risk, or slow down for security reasons,” said Danny LeCompte, CEO of Portnox. “Portnox eliminates that tradeoff. With Kristen leading our channel strategy, we’re empowering partners to become the team that enables strategic initiatives without compromise. Our partners deliver demonstrably more secure outcomes and measurably faster results with independently validated ROI. That’s security you can prove, not just promise.”
Blue Mantis has announced the promotion of Adam Caponigro to Senior Vice President of Services.
In his expanded role at the security-first IT services provider, Caponigro will be responsible for Blue Mantis’ Services organization, overseeing managed and professional services, as well as global delivery centers across the U.S., Canada, and India.
“Adam has been instrumental in building a dynamic services organization that is both highly scalable and deeply customer-centric,” said Josh Dineen, CEO of Blue Mantis. “Under his leadership, our services business has experienced 17 percent growth over the past year, supporting an expanding global client base and increasing demand for managed services, particularly across ServiceNow environments. This promotion reflects the confidence we have in Adam’s vision, leadership, and ability to guide our global teams as we continue to grow.”
Caponigro has been with Blue Mantis for five years, contributing to strengthening the company’s operational rigor and customer engagement, while driving consistent, high-quality outcomes for clients.
CyberFOX names Os Haque as VP of Global Channels
Cybersecurity software provider CyberFOX has named veteran channel leader Os Haque as VP of Global Channels.
Haque will be charged with leading CyberFOX’s expansion into the enterprise market through strategic channel partnerships.
“Os brings exactly what we need right now,” said Adam Slutskin, CRO at CyberFOX. “He knows how to build channel programs that actually work, and he gets what it takes to move upmarket without losing what makes our products special. His track record speaks to someone who can execute at scale while keeping partners engaged and happy.”
Haque will work to accelerate CyberFOX’s presence in the mid-market and build stronger connections with IT decision-makers through channel partners.
“Two things brought me to CyberFOX,” said Haque. “First, the culture. This team plays hard, builds technology that’s actually simple to use, and tackles cybersecurity as proactive defense rather than reactive cleanup. Second, I wanted to work alongside proven entrepreneurs like David Dellini and Adam Slutskin to shape what cybersecurity looks like next. I’m also excited to join forces with Berto Gutierrez, who’s built a solid foundation for our channel program over the past two years. What he’s accomplished gives us a real springboard for what comes next.”
Guardz names Rob Rae as strategic advisor
Guardz, a cybersecurity platform for MSPs to help protect small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), has tapped Rob Rae as a new strategic advisor to support the company’s MSP-focused strategy, ecosystem development, and industry engagement.
Rae is currently serving as Corporate Vice President of Community and Partner Experience at Pax8. As an advisor to Guardz, Rae will provide guidance on MSP community engagement, ecosystem development, and evolving security needs across the channel.
“MSPs are on the front lines of cybersecurity at a time when attacks are accelerating, customer expectations are rising, and SMBs are more reliant on the MSP community than ever to keep them secure and their businesses running,” said Dior Eisner, CEO and co-founder of Guardz. “Rob brings a rare combination of deep MSP community trust and real-world channel experience, making him a strategic addition as we continue to build Guardz into the all-in-one security platform MSPs rely on to protect their SMB customers.”
Further, Rae will help advise on how cybersecurity is delivered across the MSP ecosystem and engage in select initiatives.
Channelscaler expands leadership team
Channelscaler, an enterprise platform for partner ecosystems, is expanding its leadership team with a new Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Senior VP of Marketing, VP of Customer Success, and VP of Sales.
Chris Walker will be stepping into the CFO role, aligning financial strategies with Channelscaler’s goals to enhance growth and deliver value to customers and investors.
The Senior VP of Marketing role will be taken on by Pam Erlichman, who brings over 25 years of experience in marketing and technology. She previously served as CMO and Chief Evangelist at Jebbit.
Ross French will take on the VP of Customer Success role, bringing over a decade of experience in scaling customer organizations within high-growth technology and SaaS companies. He will be responsible for managing the post-sales customer experience.
The new VP of Sales will be Jason Moore, bringing over 15 years of SaaS go-to-market expertise, having previously served as Chief Sales Officer at ChurnZero.
“Looking back at 2025, Channelscaler has made notable strides in strengthening our focus on customer success,” said Brian Martin, CEO, Channelscaler. “The investments we have made in our people, our platform, and technology are now supporting our clients in increasing adoption, engagement, and partner collaboration, while also enabling them to enter new markets, accelerate growth, and improve partner profitability.”
Other strategic leadership appointments span technical and operational roles
Backblaze appoints Dan Spraggins as Senior Vice President of Engineering
Backblaze, a high-performance cloud storage platform, has announced that Dan Spraggins will be the company’s new Senior Vice President of Engineering.
Spraggins will be charged with guiding the evolution of Backblaze’s storage cloud as it supports the next generation of data-driven and AI-powered applications.
“Dan’s deep expertise building and operating global-scale platforms and driving AI innovation makes him an outstanding leader for our engineering organization,” said Gleb Budman, co-founder and CEO of Backblaze. “As our customers increasingly rely on Backblaze for AI workflows and mission critical applications, this experience will be instrumental to our continued growth.”
Spraggins has previously served as Vice President of Engineering at HP and has more than two decades of experience leading large-scale software, platform, and AI engineering organizations.
Leaseweb appoints Jan Willem des Tombe as Global Strategic Relations Director
Cloud services and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) providerLeaseweb has appointed Jan Willem des Tombe as its new Global Strategic Relations Director.
Des Tombe will focus on developing and strengthening Leaseweb’s global marketing narrative, increasing industry visibility and recognition, and supporting strategic growth initiatives across marketing, communications, sales, partnerships, and M&A.
“We are thrilled to welcome Jan Willem to Leaseweb. His deep industry experience, strategic mindset, and proven track record in building and transforming technology organizations will play a vital role in our next phase of growth,” said Lex Boost, Co-CEO of Leaseweb. “His ability to turn market opportunities into commercial momentum aligns perfectly with our ambitions. We look forward to working with him as we continue to strengthen our position as a sovereign hybrid cloud leader.”
Clean Data Alliance names Rex M. Lee to Board of Directors
Veteran technology executive, cybersecurity advisor, and investigative journalist Rex M. Lee is joining the Clean Data Alliance (CDA).
The CDA aims to advance responsible, transparent, and human-centric data practices that balance innovation with civil liberties, security, and accountability.
“Rex has a rare combination of deep technical expertise, policy experience, and investigative insight perfectly aligned with the Clean Data Alliance mission,” said CDA Founder, Michael Munson. “His perspective, credibility, and passion will be invaluable as CDA continues to shape the future of ethical, and ultimately more profitable data practices all over the world.”
Lee brings over 35 years of experience to the CDA across telecom, enterprise tech, cybersecurity, AI, and digital rights advocacy. He has advised DHS Science & Technology, the NSA, NIST, and U.S. lawmakers, and founded the Electronic Bill of Rights (EBOR) initiative and the cybersecurity firm My Smart Privacy.
“Clean, ethical data practices are no longer optional, they are foundational to trust, democracy, and national security,” said Lee. “I’m honored to join the Clean Data Alliance board and support its mission to promote responsible data practices that respect human agency, privacy, and transparency.”
Calero names Hyoun Park as VP of Telecom & Mobility Management
Calero, a provider of technology business management (TBM) solutions, has found a new VP of Telecom & Mobility Management, appointing Hyoun Park to the role.
“Calero didn’t simply contribute to the telecom and mobility management industry – we built it, scaled it, and set the standard,” said Scott Gilbert, Calero CEO. “Our future is focused on elevating customer value and delivering measurable, strategic business impact. Bringing Hyoun on board affirms our commitment to investing ahead of the market. His expertise and forward-looking perspective align seamlessly with our mission to empower enterprises to maximize their resources and manage technology in ways that were previously unattainable.”
Park brings over two decades of experience in enterprise IT, telecom operations, financial management, and industry research to the role.
“I’ve spent two decades shaping the technology expense management category,” said Park. “In my discussions with Scott and [Eric Martarano, President & CRO], Calero’s vision is unmatched and this role is a natural extension of the work I’ve devoted my career to. The challenge today isn’t visibility, but rather converting technology investments into real productivity and measurable outcomes. Calero has the scale, expertise, and focus to unify these demands through innovation and top talent. This team is exceptional, and I’m excited to help drive what comes next.”
NucleicAI appoints Douglas Voet as Principal Engineering Architect
NucleicAI, a next-gen platform and data company specializing in AI-driven genomics, longevity medicine, and health intelligence, has recently announced that Douglas Voet will assume the role of Principal Engineering Architect.
Formerly the Senior Principal Software Engineer at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Voet will help the company expand its platform globally to support national-scale genomics, precision medicine, and longevity initiatives.
“We are thrilled to welcome Douglas to the NucleicAI team,” said Dr. David Sinclair, AO, PhD, Co-Founder of NucleicAI and Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School. “His ability to translate complex biological data into actionable intelligence aligns perfectly with our vision to revolutionize human longevity through AI-driven data analysis.”
Voet’s expertise aligns well with NucleicAI’s mission – with experience in distributed systems, genomic data integration, and scalable AI architectures.
The end of 2025 saw a flurry of C-suite changes, and that trend has continued with a massive amount of leadership changes to start 2026. In case you missed it, catch up on the leadership moves that ended Q4 2025.
