ExtraHop had an exceptional year in 2021, and Arif Kareem, the outgoing former CEO, decided to go out on a high note and retire. Today, ExtraHop announced that Patrick Dennis will assume the role of CEO.
Dennis inherits a company with solid momentum. ExtraHop, a cloud-native network detection and response (NDR) company, grew annual recurring revenue (ARR) by 47% to $140 million in 2021—driven by 54% year-over-year growth in new customer acquisition. The company also expanded its global footprint across Japan, Germany, Australia, and the Middle East.
Introducing Patrick Dennis
A press release from ExtraHop describes the new CEO. “Dennis has nearly 25 years of experience leading high-growth public and private companies in the security and information technology markets including CEO roles at Guidance Software and Alvaria, and leadership positions at EMC and Oracle. His vision and leadership have helped companies like ExtraHop achieve multi-year growth through strategic product investments, international expansion, and a customer-centric approach.”
The ‘COVID Effect’
I had an opportunity to speak with Dennis about where ExtraHop is as he assumes the CEO role, and what the future holds for the company.
One of the driving forces for IT and cybersecurity over the past couple years is the COVID-19 pandemic. More precisely, it’s the digital transformation organizations were forced to accelerate or adopt overnight, and the dramatic shift brought on by suddenly having to manage data and assets across public and personal networks as individuals work remotely from home. It has made the attack surface significantly more complex and provided new opportunities for threat actors.
We spoke about what that means for visibility—for the ability of IT and security managers to know exactly what devices and applications are connected to their network, and who or what are accessing and transferring data. Organizations struggled with visibility and cybersecurity before the pandemic, but now the whole world is the network and every device is the “perimeter,” so it has become exponentially more challenging.
It is an issue that is exacerbated by the fact that—in many cases—the endpoints are not managed by the company. Employees are using home PCs and personal mobile devices to connect to business networks and data. It simultaneously increases the risk while reducing the ability for the security team to address it.
Dennis explained, “You start to apply artificial intelligence and machine learning practices across the network in a way that lets you get observability that you didn't have before and get some visibility, you know, in real time, or near real time, even as things are headed toward places you may not have control of.”
He added, “I actually think this is the moment where—and it’s not taking anything away from endpoint because endpoint security is important, too—but you need something that’s an “and” because you weren't going to solve it all at the endpoint.”
That is where a company like ExtraHop comes in. Dennis talked about how the nature of the traffic traversing the network is provides an amazing opportunity to isolate attacks and threats, and that this is the reason that right now is the time for NDR.
The Road Ahead
Many times when a new CEO comes in, it’s to fix things the former CEO broke and try to save the company, or to recover after some sort of executive scandal. That is not the case with ExtraHop. This transition is happening because Arif is ready to move on and seek new experiences, and he is leaving Dennis with a rocket ship on a solid trajectory.
With that in mind, I asked him what the next few months, or the rest of 2022 might look like, and what his priorities for the company are. He responded “We’re going to focus on the mission of cybersecurity.”
What does that mean? Dennis elaborated, “We want to make sure the organization stays super customer-centric. We want to make sure we get really precise on what problems we're solving for these customers. And, we want to make sure we go tell that story to as many customers as we can.”
Dennis summed it up in a blog post. “This is an important time in the world, and an important time in cybersecurity. We exist in a state of continuous compromise, where advanced threats are pervasive and attack techniques have outpaced the tools and resources we have to reliably defend against them. This isn’t a reason to give up. This is an opportunity for all of us––technologists, defenders, business leaders––to make a meaningful impact. I joined ExtraHop because I believe this company can disproportionally contribute to that impact.”
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