Lacework today announced the appointment of Niels Provos as the company’s first Head of Security Efficacy. Provos brings nearly two decades of industry experience in creating healthy engineering teams that build security infrastructure and systems that solve cloud security problems at scale. He puts a particular emphasis on treating security as an engineering problem.
After receiving his PhD in computer science from the University of Michigan, Provos spent over 15 years supporting the development of Google’s security and privacy engineering practice, such as helping to establish Safe Browsing which protects over 4 billion devices on the Internet.
He then joined Stripe in 2018 as Head of Security where he set Stripe on a path towards a world-class security posture to help build significant trust with customers and to be ready for the public markets.
To keep himself balanced and get more people interested in working in the security domain, he also produces cybersecurity-themed EDM tracks under his artist name Activ8te.
“I have helped to build two world-class security organisations and during that time have seen adversaries become more sophisticated and attacks increase in frequency and volume. I deeply believe that every company needs to be enabled to protect their customers’ data against threats from outside or inside. That’s why my next challenge is being part of a team with the greater mission of helping customers be secure in a more hostile environment,” said Provos. “Lacework is in a great position by focusing on customer outcomes that matter to help scale security like no other company before.”
“Niels is one of the strongest security-minded leaders in the world with a long track record of building world-class security organisations. He truly understands the challenges security professionals face in today’s cloud environments and how to solve them,” said Jay Parikh, CEO, Lacework. “Niels will help us continue delivering new innovations in the Polygraph Data Platform, bringing the security excellence he built at Stripe and Google to customers of all sizes and industries.”
Provos is another industry leader to join Lacework in recent months, along with CMO Meagen Eisenberg, CFO Andrew Casey, VP of Americas Channels Faraz Siraj, and VP of Global Technical Services Chris Gilbert.
