Proofpoint
Leadership

Ashan Willy is the CEO of Proofpoint and directs a global workforce of over 4,000 employees focused on defending organizations from advanced threats and compliance risks by protecting their people—and in turn, safeguarding their data, business, and reputation.

Mr. Willy brings over 25 years of leadership experience in sales, channel development, engineering, product management, customer success, and worldwide go-to-market strategy across global markets to his role. Prior to Proofpoint, he led teams at Cisco, Webex, Juniper and Polycom. Mr. Willy holds a Master of Business Administration degree from Pepperdine University in California and a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from McMaster University in Ontario, Canada. He also holds a CCIE, among other industry designations.

Lyn Campbell is the EVP of Customer Success and IT for Proofpoint, expanding her current role as the leader of Global Operations. Her organization manages the corporate and production cloud infrastructures that power the Proofpoint business, security and compliance throughout the enterprise, and the Customer Success teams that deliver support and training across the globe. She brings more than 25 years of experience to her role. Prior to joining Proofpoint, Ms. Campbell led the international media production engineering team for Yahoo! Media, which served hundreds of millions of global customers. Known for her success with SaaS companies, her experience also includes directing teams at Sybase, WebEx, and Intraware (now Flexera software). Ms. Campbell earned a B.A. in English from the University of California, Berkeley.

Mayank Choudhary (MC) leads the Proofpoint Information & Cloud Security Products. As the GM, MC is responsible for driving technology innovation to deliver a world-class platform that helps our customers protect their people and data and secure the cloud. As a leader in this fast-growing business, he oversees product, engineering and threat research teams around the world.

With more than 20 years of experience in product leadership roles, MC brings a deep knowledge of cybersecurity and technology to Proofpoint. His experience ranges from fast-growing startups to Fortune 500 technology companies. Before joining Proofpoint in 2019, he served as SVP, Product and Engineering at ObserveIT, a Bain Capital funded cybersecurity startup. In that role, he and his team built the category-defining Insider Threat Management solution that led the company to a successful acquisition by Proofpoint.

Before coming to Proofpoint, Mr. DePaolis was the vice president of Engineering, Applications, and Operations at Webraska (formerly AirFlash, Inc.), the leading provider of location-based software and solutions, including services targeted at wireless mobile users and geospatial mapping and routing engines. Prior to AirFlash, Mr. DePaolis was with Netscape Communications/AOL, where he was technical director of Messaging and Collaboration for iPlanet E-Commerce Solutions, a Sun/Netscape alliance. Previously, Mr. DePaolis held senior architect and engineering management positions at ISOCOR; the leading supplier of Internet messaging, meta-directory software solutions, and at Quarterdeck Office Systems; developing some of the earliest consumer Internet browsers and utilities. Earlier in his career, Mr. DePaolis co-founded and held the position of CEO of Pittsburgh Powercomputing Corporation, a company that specialized in fast X Window System servers and other graphics software. Mr. DePaolis holds a triple major B.S. degree in electrical, computer, and biomedical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University.

Yair Grindlinger brings 25 years of technology and security leadership to Proofpoint as SVP, Cloud Security Market Strategy. In this capacity, Mr. Grindlinger leads the strategy for Proofpoint’s information protection platform and broader cloud security offerings. Prior to this role and since Proofpoint’s acquisition of FireLayers in 2016, where he was co-founder and CEO, Yair headed Proofpoint's Information Protection Products as GM, VP and has played a vital role in the development of the company's CASB, enterprise DLP and cloud security offerings. Yair previously co-founded and was CEO of SupportSpace, an online tech support platform provider acquired by Best Buy. Prior to that, Yair was CEO of Port Authority, one of the early DLP companies that created the DLP category, which was eventually acquired by Websense (Forcepoint). In preceding years, Yair was a Fund Manager at STI Ventures, an early stage VC. In his early career, Yair lead the International Sales and Marketing of Security-7 until it was acquired by Computer Associates. Yair’s security experience began in his Israeli Defense Forces military service where he served as an officer in the army’s technology unit.

Jason Hurst is SVP of Corporate Development at Proofpoint. Previously, Mr. Hurst served as VP, Head of Corporate Development for Pivotal, where he was responsible for strategic initiatives and complex projects, including M&A and investments. Mr. Hurst also led M&A at VMware, and helped to navigate the process of establishing Pivotal. He also worked at Citi/Salomon Smith Barney as a technology investment banker for nearly a decade. In that role, he advised on and executed hundreds of client projects and deals. Mr. Hurst holds a bachelor’s degree in Economics with a minor in Japanese from BYU. He also holds an MBA with honors from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

With over 20 years of experience in the information security industry, Mr. Kalember currently leads cybersecurity strategy for Proofpoint and is a sought-out expert for leadership and 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.

Darren Lee is responsible for the Proofpoint Security Products and Services Group. As GM, Darren is responsible for the Proofpoint core security offerings for Threat, Email Security, Identity Defense, Threat Research and Machine Learning. Prior to this role, Darren led the company’s Compliance and Digital Risk group, the financial services segment, and machine learning investments.

Before joining Proofpoint, Darren served as the Founder and CEO of NextPage, a leading provider of Information Governance solutions. Having founded multiple startup companies, he has vast experience in defining markets, creating products, executing acquisitions, and driving revenue to build viable businesses. Darren holds a B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from BYU.

Alan LeFort is a sought-after evangelist and advocate of cybersecurity. He’s known for his ability to synthesize and simplify the complex using humor and storytelling. This passion for simplicity has led him to cultivate product organizations centered around empathy, design thinking and innovation. Mr. LeFort has held strategy and product leadership roles at security companies in the US, Europe and Canada. His experiences span startups to publicly traded companies across consumer and enterprise. Prior to joining Proofpoint, Alan held senior roles at McAfee, HyTrust, AVG, Telus, Intellitactics, and AT&T Canada. Mr. LeFort holds an MBA from the University of Toronto and a BBA in Finance from the University of St. Thomas in Houston, TX.

Blake P. Sallé is the Chief Revenue Officer at Proofpoint, where he leads the company’s global customer-facing and go-to-market functions. With nearly 30 years of experience, Mr. Sallé has a strong background in building strategic sales, customer success, routes to market, and field operations initiatives that drive momentum, growth, and revenue across international markets.

Before joining Proofpoint in 2017, he served as President of Kony, the leading provider of enterprise mobility solutions. Mr. Sallé has also held senior leadership positions at some of the most recognized and innovative organizations in technology and healthcare such as Cisco, VCE, VMware, EMC, Johnson & Johnson, DXC, PTC, and an Andreessen Horowitz-backed start-up acquired by RSA. Mr. Sallé holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas at Austin.

Rémi Thomas is the Chief Financial Officer at Proofpoint, and brings over 30 years of global finance experience with demonstrated leadership across all finance functions for both large and smaller technology organizations, as well as strong credibility with the investor and financial analyst community. Prior to joining Proofpoint, Rémi was the CFO at Extreme Networks, where he oversaw financial planning and analysis, accounting, SEC reporting, tax, treasury, and internal audit, as well as relations with lenders and investors. During his tenure at Extreme Networks, the company completed two acquisitions, returned to double digit growth, increased its operating margin to the mid-teens and successfully launched a subscription-based software business. Rémi also held senior finance roles at CA Technologies and HPE Software, a business unit of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and Alcatel-Lucent in Paris and Shanghai. He has a Master of Business Administration from University of Warwick (UK), and a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Toulouse Business School (France).

Paul Valentino is the Chief People Officer at Proofpoint. In his role as CPO, he leads the Human Resources function responsible for creating an exceptional employee experience for Proofpoint global team members. Prior to his CPO appointment, he served as acting CHRO and VP of HR at Proofpoint, building and optimizing people-centric strategies and operations for multiple global, diverse business groups. A proven partner recognized for developing organizational structures and workforce plans to support change and growth, Mr. Valentino has more than 30 years of experience in the technology space, having held HR leadership roles at Juniper Networks, Rambus, Velodyne LIDAR and Synopsys. Mr. Valentino holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science with minors in Marketing and Sociology from the University of Missouri–Columbia.

Michael Yang is responsible for Proofpoint worldwide legal affairs. He leads the teams responsible for contracting, licensing, strategic intellectual property creation and protection, employment law, data privacy, corporate law, compliance and corporate governance. Mr. Yang brings to Proofpoint more than 25 years of international business and legal experience at both public and privately-held companies. He provides particular expertise in building and scaling global legal departments and processes to meet the needs of high-growth technology companies. Prior to joining Proofpoint, Mr. Yang developed and led the corporate legal function and later the products and technology group as Associate General Counsel and Assistant Secretary of VMware, Inc., as that company grew from $200 million to over $2 billion in annual revenues. Mr. Yang has also held executive and senior management roles as an attorney for Medialive International and Openwave (as well as its predecessor, Software.com, where he contributed to that company's successful IPO and subsequent merger with Phone.com). He began his practice as an intellectual property attorney in the Los Angeles offices of Baker Hostetler. He holds an A.B. in government from Cornell University and a J.D. from the UCLA School of Law. He is admitted to practice law in the State of California.