The Impact of Duo Security's Acquisition 5-years Later

When Duo Security was acquired by Cisco in 2018 you could feel that it would have a lasting impact on the security industry. We approaching 5-years since the acquisition and the impact has been felt throughout the industry, as many former Duo Security employees including myself have gone on to take leadership roles at other companies, and a few have gone on to found their own companies.

In total 19 #cybersecurity companies have hired former Duo Security employees that were employed prior to Cisco's acquisition in executive roles. There are also 11 additional noteworthy tech companies that are not in cybersecurity.

The 19 Cybersecurity Companies w/ Duo Executives

Let's Take a Look at Who Went Where?

Cisco | 160+ Active Former Duo Employees | 100,701 employees | 0.17%

It's not surprising that many people still work at Cisco 5-years later. The security business group has several executive leaders from Duo including Wendy Nather (Head of Advisory CISOs), Helen Patton (CISO), Neville Letzerich (VP of Marketing) and Saleema Syed (COO, Webex)

Expel | 24 Duo Hires | 501 employees | 4.8%

Dave Merkel and I chatted at the RSA Conference about his experience collaborating with Jon Oberheide and Dug Song to help build a great culture at Expel. Now 4.8% of the company came from Duo. Peter Katz (VP and General Counsel) joined Expel early and then Expel managed to bring on an allstar team including Jennifer Lawrence (CRO), Erin Howe (Chief of Staff) and Kimi Corrigan (VP of Marketing) who are all amazing at everything they do.

Panther | 23 Duo Hires | 207 employees | 11.1%

Hiroki Saotome (VP of Sales) joined Duo early as an ADR. He quickly became a top performing account executive and took a role in leading part of Duo's Sales team under Jennifer Lawrence. Hiroki Saotome managed to bring a lot of the pre-sales team with him to Panther including top talent Patrick Gleason (Head of SE's) Umang Barman (Head of Product Marketing) and a host of others. This group makes up 11.1% of total Panther employees.

Wiz | 21 Duo Hires | 615 employees | 3.2%

It's been an interesting ride to watch friends at Wiz scale seemingly to infinity. Colin Jones (CRO) joined Duo in Enterprise Sales and and quickly leaned in taking on a leadership role. Colin brought on Jordan King (VP of Sales), Alana Kadden Ballon (she/her) (VP of Rev Ops), and Tom Gwynn in leadership roles who I hear keep crushing it to this day.

Censys | 17 Duo Hires | 115 employees | 14.8%

It's no surprise Jasmine Burns (VP of People and Culture) is leading People and Culture at Censys. Jeff Thurston (VP of Sales) was a top seller at Duo and it's great to see he's leading a team now. Censys is also based in Ann Arbor, MI, Duo's home town.

Blumira | 16 Duo Hires | 51 employees | 31.4%

Jim Simpson (CEO) lead product at Duo. All of us knew Jim would be a CEO one day and he's making an incredible impact. He has a large team of people recruited from Duo around him including Jeremy Young, Thu Pham, Jake Payton and Kim Brown. Blumira is also based in Ann Arbor, MI, Duo's home town.

Okta | 16 Duo Hires | 8,148 employees | .2%

Dean Scontras (VP SLED) and Sean Frazier (Federal CSO) are government powerhouses in the security industry.

runZero | 11 Duo Hires | 84 employees | 13%

Jay Wallace (VP of WW Sales) has been crushing it at runZero and has attracted top leaders including Bryan O'Neil and Madison Smiser. They are one of my favorite companies on this list.

Tessian | 7 Duo Hires | 257 employees | 2.7%

Matthew Q. Smith (Chief Strategy & Growth Officer) and Josh Yavor (CISO) landed at Tessian and have broad reach in the security industry. Josh is also on the executive advisory board at Expel. They brought a decent group of Duo friends with them.

Armorblox | 7 Duo Hires | 121 employees | 5.7%

Courtney Kegelmayer (VP of Global Sales), Manu Anand (VP of Product), Mandy Legal (General Counsel)

GitHub | 4 Duo Hires | 5,386 employees | .07%

Michael Hanley (CSO & SVP of Engineering) is a powerhouse in the tech industry leading security and engineering at Github.

1Password | 3 Duo Hires | 925 employees | .3%

Steve Won (CPO) was a product leader at Duo that worked under Jim Simpson who is now CEO at Blumira. He is one of the few people that went on to lead at another identity company post Duo and is very passionate about passwordless technology.

AaDya Security | Duo Founder | 2 Duo Hires | 27 employees | 11%

Raffaele Mautone (CEO) at AaDya is the only Cybersecurity founder that I am aware. He has a long history of building and scaling cybersecurity companies and recruited Jennifer Rass (Chief of Staff). AaDya is also based in MI, Duo's home state.

Cyberhaven | 3 Duo Hires | 96 employees | 3.1%

Will Saso (VP of Sales) was at Censys prior to joining Cyberhaven. He continues to pull top sales talent from the Duo talent pool.

Secureframe | 3 Duo Hires | 145 employees | 2%

Kyle McLaughlin (General Counsel) and Christopher Sesi (VP) joined Secureframe.

 Silverfort | 1 Duo Hire | 192 employees | .5%

Mathew Varghese (VP of Sales) was an early sales leader who built our Enterprise sales practice and led Duo sales in the early days.

Nucleus Security | 1 Duo Hire | 73 employees | 1.4%

Patrick Garrity 👾🛹💙 (VP of Marketing)... Hey that's me! I really enjoy building and working at Nucleus. I worked closely with almost everyone on this list if you can believe that, but we haven't hired anyone from the Duo talent pool just yet. It's worth noting Jim Cyb is an advisor.

Cider Security | 1 Duo Hire | 72 employees | 1.4%

Carl Elsinger (VP of Sales) was an Enterprise sales rep at Duo.

ArmorCode Inc. | 1 Duo Hire | 72 employees | 1.4%

Jason Stutt (VP of Sales) lead Enterprise sales at Duo and previously worked at Armorblox. He must really like companies with Armor in their name.

Companies by Industry Category

The cybersecurity companies that have attracted top talent from Duo Security are broadly distributed across the security industry including these top categories built-out by Richard Stiennon's IT-Harvest dashboard: #applicationsecurity, #securityanalytics, #emailsecurity, #networksecurity, #mssp, #iam and #grc.

Noteworthy Tech Companies (Not in the Security Industry)

Here is a list of noteworthy tech companies and people that have benefited from bringing on top level talent from Duo Security.

NinjaOne | 8 Duo Hires | 583 employees

Executive Roles: Rahul Hirani (SVP product Management), Dean Yeck (CRO)

Gatsby | 6 Duo Hires | 74 employees

Executive Roles: Zack Urlocker (CEO), John Skubel (VP of Sales)

Edge Delta | 5 Duo Hires | 92 employees

Executive Roles: Nick Galluch (VP of Marketing)

Chief | 3 Duo Hires

Executive Roles: Kendra Mitchell (Chief People Officer) Trey Boynton (VP of inclusion & Diversity)

Shogun | 3 Duo Hires | 257 employees

Executive Roles: Jon Matthews (VP of Engineering)

Superlunar | 3 Duo Hires | 7 employees

Executive Roles: Peter Baker (VP of Design/Product)

Talkdesk | 3 Duo Hires | 1,817 employees

Executive Roles: Sydney Carey (CFO), Raymond Yue (SVP of Finance), Carrie Zehnder (VP FP&A)

FullStory | 2 Duo Hires | 592 employees

Executive Roles: Mark Stanislav, PhD (VP, Product Security and Compliance)

Autobooks | 1 Duo Hire | 112 employees

Executive Roles: Joseph Gaiefsky (VP of Finance)

Ironclad | 1 Duo Hire | 538 employees

Executive Roles: Ambrosia Vertesi (Chief People Officer)

Yottled | Duo Founder | 10 employees

Executive Roles: Trevor Hough (CEO)