NAIROBI, Kenya, May 21 – Joe Levy has been confirmed as the CEO of Sophos, a global company that offers cybersecurity services.
Levy, who has been acting in this capacity since February 15, has also picked Jim Dildine as the new chief financial officer (CFO) as well as other senior managerial positions.
During his nine-year tenure at Sophos, Levy is credited with transforming Sophos from a product-only vendor into a global cybersecurity giant.
Levy also created SophosAI and Sophos X-Ops, an operational threat intelligence unit that brings together more than 500 cross-departmental cybersecurity operators and threat intelligence experts.
Sophos X-Ops shares real-time and historical attack data with all of Sophos’ solutions, making them smarter and faster at defending customers from persistent cyberattacks.
As CEO, Levy plans to expand Sophos’ already strong customer base in the midmarket, which includes nearly 600,000 customers worldwide and generates more than $1.2 billion in annual revenue.
“When midmarket organizations – the global critical substrate – are paralyzed due to ransomware or other cyberattacks, business activities linked in our supply chains also stagnate, slowing our economy down,” Levy said.
“Operations of all sizes and shapes suffer collateral damage when dependencies in their supply chains are attacked. This can be devastating in often unpredictable ways because of the increasing complexity of how the modern industrialized global economy works.”
Dildine joined Sophos most recently from the cybersecurity software and services company Imperva, where he was CFO for more than four years.
Before Imperva, Dildine was CFO for Symantec’s $2.5 billion enterprise security business unit for three years.
Dildine also previously held key financial leadership roles for nearly nine years at Blue Coat Systems, where Levy also served as chief technology officer.
While at Blue Coat Systems, he oversaw a dramatic growth in market value while guiding the company to a go-private transaction by Thoma Bravo, a sale from Thoma Bravo to Bain Capital, and a subsequent sale to Symantec for $4.6 billion in 2016.
Dildine also spearheaded the acquisition and seamless integration of six security-focused companies, which were valued at more than $750 million during his tenure.
By Hyrance Matinde
