Sysdig reshuffles C-suite to reach $250m
The company has appointed Gary Olson as CRO and Crendal Kear as CBO
San Francisco-based security vendor Sysdig has hired Gary Olson as CRO and Crendal Kear as CBO in an effort to reach $250m (£193.1m) in ARR.
These leadership changes also come as the cybersecurity firm reported a 337 per cent increase in Sysdig Sage user adoption over the last eight months.
More than 45 per cent of Sysdig’s customers have reportedly adopted the technology.
Sysdig also closed its fiscal year with more than 400 per cent expansion across EMEA over the last two years.
Gary Olson, CRO
Olson joined the channel 28 years ago as a global account manager at PTC.
He then became senior account executive and regional sales director for Central US at business integration software provider SeeBeyond, before stepping up as regional sales VP for Central US and Canada.
Olson added LATAM to the collection of territories he oversaw when the company was acquired by Sun Microsystems in 2005.
He moved on to director of US software sales & software system engineering until 2008 when he joined Mu Dynamics as VP of worldwide sales.
From then he occupied different leadership positions for less than a year each, such as VP of Americas sales at Blue Coat Systems, and sales global managing director of security sales at Juniper Networks.
In 2012, he joined BMC Software as area VP of sales before stepping up as group VP of sales North America West, federal and public, and Latin America.
He embarked on another yearly venture as SVP of worldwide sales operations at EdgeWave in 2014.
Sysdig’s new CRO then brought his sales experience to Zscaler as VP & GM of Americas sales, before being in charge of the worldwide operations in 2017.
He went on to become SVP of Americas and EMEA sales at Alien Vault in 2018, one month before the company was acquired by AT&T.
He became SVP of global sales for AT&T in 2019, position he assumed for five years.
Olson entered the C-suite when he joined Snyk in March 2024 as CRO, achieving a $300m in ARR within a year.
“Sysdig stands out in cloud security with the industry’s fastest cloud detection and response, seamlessly correlating data across dynamic cloud environments in real time,” said Olson.
Crendal Kear, CBO
On the other hand, Kear entered the channel in 2000 when joining NetApp as sales operations manager.
She cut her teeth at the company where she stayed until 2012, climbing up to senior manager of business operations within six years.
She then joined Hewlett-Packard as director of software sales compensation, before stepping up as senior director of Americas sales operations.
Kear went on to occupy different vice president and senior vice president of sales at tech companies such as Aricent, Zscaler, where she worked alongside Olson from 2016 to 2018, Exabeam, and Talkdesk.
Her appointment as CBO at Sysdig marks her entry into the C-suite.
“Given the substantial European expansion, the global adoption of Falco, and the rapid evolution of Sysdig Sage, we have a tremendous opportunity to redefine how businesses approach security in the cloud,” said Kear.
“My focus is to build the operational rigor necessary to scale our GTM motion, optimise execution, and ensure that customers receive a best-in-class experience.”
Leadership changes
Sysdig’s CEO, William Welch, is also a recent addition to the security vendor’s leadership, as he became the head of the company in November last year, in an effort to “redefine the standard of cloud security.”
Former COO at Zscaler, he worked alongside Olson and Kear during their tenure at the San Jose-headquartered zero trust vendor.
With him at the helm, he hired Shanta Kohli as CMO in November and Sergej Epp CISO in December.
Shortly after his appointment, Epp told CRN that his mission was to “develop Sysdig’s approach around cybersecurity strategy, operations, and risk management initiatives.”
“Reuniting with Gary and Crendal from our time at Zscaler, as well as appointing a new CMO and CISO last year, positions Sysdig to drive innovation in cloud security as we push toward $250m ARR and beyond,” said Welch.