Cybersecurity's brightest minds take the stage

Sumit Dhawan

Chief Executive Officer

As CEO of Proofpoint, Sumit Dhawan leads a global workforce of over 4,500 employees focused on defending organizations from advanced cyber threats and compliance risks by protecting their people—and in turn, safeguarding their data, business, and reputation. A seasoned executive with a proven track record, Mr. Dhawan brings over 25 years of experience in building category-leading, scaled enterprise software companies and businesses. Sumit previously served as VMware’s President, where he was responsible for driving over $13B of revenue for the company and led go-to-market functions including worldwide sales, customer success and experience, strategic ecosystem, industry solutions, marketing, and communications. He also previously served as Chief Customer Experience Officer, managing global teams responsible for professional services, technical support, and customer success. Before that, Mr. Dhawan was chief executive officer of Instart, a cybersecurity business delivering innovations in web application performance and security services and held senior executive and general management roles at Citrix.

Mr. Dhawan is a strong advocate for delivering an exceptional experience to customers and partners. He is passionate about building diverse teams and fostering inclusive cultures and equitable environments that bring out the best in everyone. Mr. Dhawan holds an MBA from the Warrington College of Business at the University of Florida, an MS in Computer Science from the University of Minnesota, and a BS in Computer Science from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT).

Ryan Kalember

Chief Strategy & Marketing Officer

With over 20 years of experience in the information security industry, Mr. Kalember currently leads cybersecurity strategy and marketing for Proofpoint and is a sought-after expert for commentary on breaches and best practices. His global team of security experts ensures that Proofpoint’s customers have consistent insight into the attacks that target their people.

Mr. Kalember joined Proofpoint from WatchDox where he served as both chief product officer and CMO, leading the development of pioneering data-centric security solutions through to the company’s acquisition. Previously, Ryan ran solutions across HP’s portfolio of security products, was director of product strategy at ArcSight, and held a variety of positions at VeriSign, including EMEA regional manager and senior product manager. Early in his career, Ryan was a security practitioner, helping build many leading security organizations and security operations centers (SOCs) around the world. He received his bachelor's degree from Stanford University, where he studied fault tolerance, cryptography, and authentication algorithms.

Molly McLain Sterling

Senior Director, Global Cybersecurity Strategists

Molly champions human-centric security and culture, helping organizations build resilience through behavioral insights and smarter alignment of people and technology.

Michael Beninda

Principal PS Consultant

Michael Beninda, a Principal Consultant with over 13 years at Proofpoint, guides complex email security deployments and designs scalable, resilient solutions for global organizations.

Jennica Brodeur

Staff Expert CSM

Jennica is a Staff Expert is customer success, with over 13 years in cybersecurity and 6+ at Proofpoint. She helps global teams maximize value from Proofpoint's Threat Protection products.

Davide Canali

Director, Threat Research

Dr. Davide Canali is Director of Threat Research at Proofpoint. He leads a global team of researchers focused on studying the threat landscape and tracking its actors.

Jenny Chen

Sr. Product Marketing Manager

Jenny has over two decades of expertise in cybersecurity and is responsible for Proofpoint Core Email Protection while evangelizing its AI and detection stack innovations.

Alexis Dorais-Joncas

Senior Manager, Threat Research

Alexis is the Senior Manager of Proofpoint’s APT research team, which is responsible for tracking the most elusive state-sponsored threat actors and disrupting their activities.

Cristiana Kittner

Sr. Manager, Threat Research

Cris leads eCrime research at Proofpoint, bringing deep expertise in APT tracking, election interference, and Asia-pacific cyber ops from a background in military and defense analysis.

James Knight

Principal PS Consultant

James Knight brings over 29 years in IT, including 10+ at Proofpoint. He's helped Fortune 100 firms deploy defenses to protect their global enterprises from evolving digital threats.

Josh Linkenhoker

Enterprise Security Adviser

Josh is an experienced enterprise information security leader and has helped dozens of organizations align business objectives with risk-based security solutions.

Yaniv Miron

Senior Manager, Threat Research

Yaniv is a seasoned Threat Researcher who leads a team focused on cloud threats. He's an inventor and 0-day vulnerability discoverer who often presents at cyber conferences.

Matthew Moorehead

Director, Sender Security & Authentication Services

With over a decade of email authentication experience, Matt oversees the Services team responsible for deployment of Sender Security and Authentication solutions.

Sara Pan

Director, Product Marketing

Sara leads a team that helps organizations stay ahead of evolving cyber threats by driving awareness, delivering insights into attacker behavior, and sharing actionable strategies to reduce risk.

Pablo Passera

VP, Product Management

Pablo brings 19+ years in tech, leading security product teams. He drives Proofpoint’s Email Detection stack, including Protection, TAP, Emerging Threats, and Supplier Defense.

Vishal Patel

Sr. Sales Engineer

Vishal Patel is a Senior Sales Engineer at Proofpoint, with over a decade of experience in cybersecurity, specializing in adaptive email security and data loss prevention (DLP). At Proofpoint, he focuses on delivering cutting-edge solutions to protect organizations in the ever-evolving threat landscape.

Kevin San Diego

VP, Product Management, Sender Security & Authentication

Kevin has over two decades of expertise in email, mobile messaging, and DNS security and leads Proofpoint’s product management team for Impersonation Protection solutions.

Cheryl Tang

Sr. Director, Product Marketing

Cheryl is a seasoned cybersecurity and IT leader who helps enterprises reduce risks, manage human-centric threats and align security strategies with real-world business outcomes.

Craig Temple

Staff Product Marketing Manager

Craig specializes in human-centric threat protection with a focus on impersonation protection solutions that defend against brand abuse and BEC attacks.

Stephanie Torto

Senior Product Marketing Manager

Stephanie brings over two decades of experience in cybersecurity and IT and helps organizations understand how to proactively detect, deter, and mitigate insider risk.

Ash Valeski

Senior SER Solutions Director

Ash is a subject matter expert on relaying application generated emails and played a critical role in bringing Proofpoint’s Secure Email Relay solution to fruition.

Jeremy Wittkopf

Coming soon

Jeremy is an expert in architecting, implementing, and managing Information Protection programs with a focus on helping multinational organizations comply with a changing regulatory landscape.

Patrick Wheeler

Director, Product Management

With more than twenty years in cybersecurity, Patrick drives strategy and execution for incident response, reporting, and usability innovations in the TAP Dashboard and APIs.