Network Detection & Response , Next-Generation Technologies & Secure Development , Security Operations

ExtraHop Taps Ex-Check Point Exec Chris Scanlan as President

Scanlan Wants to Get NDR Vendor to $500M ARR by Revamping the Go-to-Market Plan
ExtraHop Taps Ex-Check Point Exec Chris Scanlan as President
Chris Scanlan, president and chief commercial officer, ExtraHop (Image: ExtraHop)

ExtraHop has snagged high-profile Check Point, Cylance and Optiv executive Chris Scanlan to help the network security provider reach $500 million in annual recurring revenue.

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The Seattle-based network detection and response provider has tasked Scanlan with strengthening ExtraHop's go-to-market motion, expanding its presence outside of North America, and revamping the company's channel program. Scanlan will serve as ExtraHop's president and chief commercial officer and report into Patrick Dennis, who started as CEO in February after a lengthy tenure at EMC and Oracle.

"The ExtraHop product is just amazing. There's a tremendous love affair with it that customers have," Scanlan tells Information Security Media Group. "The hardest thing in our industry is to find an incredible product."

Scanlan most recently spent a year as CEO at Defy Security and before that spent 18 months leading Check Point Software's $1.2 billion Americas business, 14 months atop Cylance's $210 million North American sales operation, and nearly 13 years at Accuvant and Optiv, where he led Optiv's $2.3 billion global salesforce. ExtraHop was one of the vendors Scanlan supported at Optiv (see: Secure From the Inside: Keep Incidents From Being Breaches).

Revving the Go-to-Market Engine

The appointment of Scanlan as president comes 16 months after private equity firms Bain Capital and Crosspoint Capital bought ExtraHop for $900 million. Scanlan wants to grow ExtraHop's ARR from $140 million in 2021 to $500 million and to bring more rigor and hygiene to the business by the time Bain and Crosspoint are looking to exit.

Scanlan plans to realign ExtraHop from a marketing and branding perspective by investing more in sales enablement as well as expanding the field marketing and operations workforce to make life easier for frontline sellers. He wants to provide better enablement to field sellers to give them a more comprehensive understanding of what ExtraHop's product does and how it gets positioned in the market.

Investing more in corporate marketing and brand initiatives should provide air cover for ExtraHop's sellers, Scanlan says, while more continuing education for field sellers should help from an enablement standpoint. He also wants to increase ExtraHop's revenue contribution outside of North America by building up more of a presence in Taiwan and Japan and expanding the company's footprint in Europe.

Weathering the Economic Storm

From a partnership perspective, Scanlan plans to more fully leverage ExtraHop's relationship with technology vendors such as CrowdStrike, as well as ensure that the company's program for channel partners is consistent and predictable. Scanlan says ExtraHop is well positioned to navigate through the economic downturn given the company's 14-year history, 1,000 clients and focus on being operationally efficient.

"Many of these companies in the industry almost became punch-drunk off their own press clippings," Scanlan says. "We have a nice head start to weather that storm."

From a metrics standpoint, Scanlan says ExtraHop plans to track new customer acquisition, demand generation and consistency across the regions and salesforce to ensure the company isn't dependent on any particular customer or sales rep. ExtraHop also will measure channel-led inbound contributions as well as the extent to which the company's own salesforce is driving pipeline growth, Scanlan says.

"The stability and the dependency of ExtraHop's product to just work as advertised is a comfort to channel partners," he says. "They know that they can depend on the product."


About the Author

Michael Novinson

Michael Novinson

Managing Editor, Business, ISMG

Novinson is responsible for covering the vendor and technology landscape. Prior to joining ISMG, he spent four and a half years covering all the major cybersecurity vendors at CRN, with a focus on their programs and offerings for IT service providers. He was recognized for his breaking news coverage of the August 2019 coordinated ransomware attack against local governments in Texas as well as for his continued reporting around the SolarWinds hack in late 2020 and early 2021.




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