strongDM Expands Executive Leadership Team

Experienced technology executives Karan Bhople (CFO), Michaline Todd (CMO), and Hermann Hesse (VP of Solutions) join strongDM to drive company's next stage of growth

BURLINGAME, Calif., March 24, 2022  /PRNewswire/ -- strongDM, the People-First Access platform, announced today that the company is expanding its senior leadership team with the appointment of three new executives: CFO Karan Bhople, CMO Michaline Todd, and Vice President of Solutions Hermann Hesse. These senior hires bring a combined three decades of experience in leadership roles at fast-growing tech startups.

New CFO Karan Bhople joins strongDM from SentinelOne, where he was previously VP of Finance. He has a strong background in security from SentinelOne and played a key part in the  company's successful IPO. In his new role as CFO at strongDM, Karan Bhople will be responsible for continuing strongDM's momentum and establishing a foundation for a rapidly growing enterprise business.

"strongDM has everything that you look for in an opportunity–-best-in-class technology, phenomenal customers, an energizing people-first company culture," Karan said. "When you consider those aspects in the context of the company's market opportunity and the speed at which we're signing customers, I see incredible potential here to drive value creation and scale this business."

New CMO Michaline Todd comes to strongDM after a succession of marketing executive roles in cloud-security companies, such as Palo Alto Networks, Evident.io (acquired by Palo Alto Networks), MarkLogic, and Veritas. Leveraging her years of experience in launching new tech categories, Michaline will be responsible for the overall marketing strategy and implementation of new paths to reach buyers, end-users and influencers alike.

"I'm thrilled to join strongDM at a pivotal point where the market has validated that you must put your people first if you're going to be successful," Michaline Todd said. "strongDM has developed an elegant solution that directly addresses the biggest challenges and pain points in modern infrastructure, making every day easier and more seamless for both technical and non-technical staff. And that all starts by focusing on people. It's not just our product that puts people first, but the whole culture of strongDM, which is what attracted me to join the team." 

New Vice President of Solutions, Hermann Hesse, joins from Palo Alto Networks, where he was Prisma Cloud worldwide vice president for pre-sales solutions architecture. At Palo Alto Networks, Hermann oversaw the integration of the pre-sales teams of multiple acquired startup companies into a world-wide Solutions Architecture team focused on selling the integrated Prisma Cloud Platform. Prior to Palo Alto Networks, Hermann previously built and led sales engineering teams at Evident.io and Sumo Logic.

"strongDM solves a fundamental challenge for technical teams–getting fast, easy access to infrastructure," Hermann Hesse said. "I'm looking forward to helping organizations tackle that challenge, especially with the great people and leadership team that are in place here."

The executives will report to CEO Tim Prendergast, who recently joined strongDM in August 2021 after a successful run as founder and CEO of cloud infrastructure security platform Evident.io, which was acquired by Palo Alto Networks.

"Expanding our executive team with these talented leaders is another positive sign of strongDM's momentum and prospects for future growth," said Tim Prendergast, CEO of strongDM. "Karan, Michaline, and Hermann all have proven track records of helping build enterprise SaaS teams and creating sustainable, scalable business models–and critically, understand what it means to be people-first, whether that's with our prospects, customers, or employees. They are bringing valuable perspectives and expertise to our organization, and I'm excited to move forward as we continue to pursue our next growth milestones." 

About strongDM

strongDM's People-First Access platform provides technical staff with direct access to the critical infrastructure they need to be productive. strongDM customers enjoy easy and secure infrastructure access regardless of tech stack or environment. Trusted from fast-growing businesses like Peloton, SoFi, Chime, Yext, and Betterment to the Fortune 500, strongDM delivers the fast, intuitive, and auditable access required for DevOps and modern security and compliance. Connect with us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or head to www.strongdm.com to learn more.

SOURCE strongDM