Tenable Strengthens Executive Team with Appointment of First-Ever Chief Revenue, Marketing Officers

Former Cisco and Tanium executives join Tenable to accelerate company momentum on the heels of strong performance and innovation

Tenable Network Security®, Inc., a global leader in cybersecurity, today announced the expansion of its executive bench with two key hires who will help lead the company through its next phase of growth. John Negron, most recently vice president of global security sales at Cisco, and Jennifer Johnson, former chief marketing officer at Tanium, have joined Tenable as the company’s first chief revenue officer (CRO) and chief marketing officer (CMO), respectively.

Negron and Johnson take the helm of the company’s go-to-market strategy and operations to further help global organizations transform how they understand and reduce their cyber risk, redefining vulnerability management in today’s world of elastic IT environments.

“Tenable has had exceptional performance to date and these appointments bring additional power and punch to make a strong team even stronger,” said Amit Yoran, CEO, Tenable. “John and Jennifer each bring to Tenable a potent blend of executive experience, strategic vision, bold execution and go-to-market innovation as demonstrated during their roles at some of the biggest and most widely recognized names in cybersecurity.”

“John’s proven track record of driving revenue for a broad range of global security organizations will be invaluable as Tenable continues to outpace both the competition and the market in terms of growth,” said Yoran. “And Jennifer’s years of experience as a brand builder and storyteller in the enterprise software space will be a game changer for how Tenable pushes our brand out into the market.”

Negron is an industry veteran who has held leadership roles in many publicly traded cybersecurity and enterprise software companies. At Cisco, he co-led the creation and launch of the company’s cybersecurity business unit, leading more than 800 field sales professionals and engineers as a result of the acquisitions of Sourcefire, Cognitive Security, ThreatGrid, OpenDns and Lancope, and scaling the business to over $2 billion in annual sales. Prior to Cisco, Negron was senior vice president of worldwide sales at Sourcefire, growing the company from zero to $300 million in revenue, up through the acquisition by Cisco for $2.7 billion. Negron has also held management roles at Riverbed Technologies, AXENT Technologies and EDP Security before its acquisition by SunGard.

Johnson is one of the most notable enterprise software marketers in the industry. She joined Tanium as its first-ever CMO, building one of the most innovative brands in the industry and positioning the company as a dominant force in the cybersecurity and enterprise IT markets, leading the company through consecutive years of triple-digit hypergrowth. Prior to Tanium, Johnson was a partner at venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, where she worked closely with its portfolio companies on go-to-market strategy. She also served as CMO at Coverity, re-positioning and scaling the company up through its acquisition by Synopsys. Prior to Coverity, Johnson held product marketing and marketing leadership positions at HP Software, Mercury Interactive, Symantec and Veritas Software.

These executive hires come on the heels of record results for Tenable in 2016 and the appointment of Yoran, former president of RSA and founding director of US-CERT, as chairman and CEO.

Other recent highlights include:

• Achieved record billings that grew in excess of 40 percent in 2016
• Added a record number of new customers in 2016, bringing total customers to more than 21,000
• Broadened global footprint with offices in 20 countries
• Successfully migrated from a perpetual license model to a subscription license model and increased recurring revenue from 50 percent to over 85 percent
• Launched Tenable.io, the industry’s first cloud-based vulnerability management platform to secure the full range of assets in the modern elastic IT environment
• Recognized as one of two pure-play cybersecurity companies named to the 2016 Forbes Next Billion-Dollar Startups list
• Received numerous industry awards and distinctions, including Best Risk/Policy Management Solution at the 2017 SC Awards US; a 2016 SANS Best of Vulnerability Management award; and, the 2016 AusCERT award for Organizational Excellence in Information Security

“Customers are looking for a partner who understands not only the security challenges presented by the modern IT environment, but also the global market and where security technology is going 10 years from now,” said Negron. “Tenable already has the credibility and the technology to completely redefine the way organizations do security. The company has proven its ability to scale in terms of customer size, billings and distribution. My goal is to build a world-class revenue-generating organization that helps Tenable continue to accelerate into the next stage of growth.”

“Over my career I’ve had the chance to lead some of the fastest-growing and most innovative brands in enterprise technology. I know a good story when I see one,” said Johnson. “A team with equal parts experience and expertise, an open and collaborative culture, and pioneering technology to solve a critical business issue is a winning combination. Twenty-one thousand customers can’t be wrong. I’m thrilled to join the Tenable team to take the company to the next level of growth and scale.”