Lehman brings two decades of experience building high-growth sales organisations at scale in the competitive security market and broader IT landscape. Prior to joining Extrahop, Lehman was Vice President of North America Sales and Channel at Fireeye, and his career includes stints in global sales, sales engineering, and channel leadership positions at companies including EMC and Salesforce.com. In his new role at Extrahop, Lehman will drive the company’s global sales and channel strategy, helping Extrahop continue to expand its footprint in IT operations and networking, as well as break out in the IT security market.

“Chris has a deep knowledge of the security industry that will only enhance the rich IT operations and enterprise networking experience of our sales organisation,” said Arif Kareem, CEO of Extrahop. “As we continue to expand our offerings across all facets of IT to serve customers where and how they need us most, Chris’ perspective will be invaluable. We look forward to having him on board as part of the Extrahop team.”

“Chris earned his reputation by driving sales growth at market-making companies,” said Mark Anderson, a member of the Extrahop Board of Directors. “His depth of sales leadership experience will be a significant asset to Extrahop as it seeks to grow its global enterprise footprint and enter into new markets.”

As advanced persistent threats like ransomware continue to outstrip traditional security models, network traffic analysis and the east-west visibility it delivers is playing a growing role in network and IT security (see Gartner’s recent report, “Network Performance Monitoring Tools Can Play A Critical Role In Responding to Security Breaches"). As customers increasingly seek to leverage real-time network traffic analysis from Extrahop to help detect, mitigate, and remediate threats, the company has ramped up investment in this market. Lehman’s deep roots in security from Fireeye, coupled with his enterprise IT experience, will help Extrahop expand its security footprint while continuing to drive adoption among IT and network operations organisations.

“ExtraHop brings a differentiated approach that has already proven to be a market disruptor in IT operations and network analytics,” said Lehman. “With their advanced analytics and machine learning, I see tremendous opportunity for expansion as everyone from security teams to business stakeholders seek to take advantage of the insight ExtraHop provides. I look forward to joining ExtraHop at this time of rapid growth, and to playing a role in the company’s success.”