Betting on Panther, Twice

The journey that brought me to Panther is perhaps a bit unconventional. Still, it’s a story I’m eager to share, especially since it involves a full-circle moment with the company. My career has been focused on building robust security operations, first at hypergrowth companies like Canva and Immutable and now at Panther. I believe deeply in the power of a strong security operations platform to enable security teams to win against adversaries.

At Canva, where the security team expanded from 5 to 85 people in four years, we invested heavily in talent and technology. It might not be widely known, but Canva was an early adopter of Panther back in 2020-21. We sought a platform to handle Canva's immense scale and support our growing detection and response efforts. While Panther showed significant promise, it was still early in their journey, and we ultimately moved to a different provider at that time. However, I always recognized the Panther team's unique talent and technology's inherent scalability. Watching Panther mature and disrupt the legacy security monitoring space from afar, I felt compelled to join and contribute to their next growth phase.

After Canva, I took on a significant challenge at Immutable, leading a small, five-person team that also managed IT. In such an environment, efficiency and prioritization are paramount. Every decision was viewed through the lens of tangible cost and immediate impact. As a Web3 company, Immutable had "liquid crown jewels" – highly attractive targets for adversaries that, if stolen, are impossible to recover. This real-world risk, exemplified by incidents like WazirX and ByBit, underscores the critical need for a security operations platform that scales and supports precise detection and automated response.

My experiences at Canva and Immutable solidified my conviction that a security operations platform isn't just a tool but the operational heart of a security program. It's about validating controls, enabling efficient detection, and driving rapid, automated incident response. It’s about empowering security engineers to focus on high-value, deep work, rather than wrestling with their tools.

Panther’s evolution and their current platform truly resonate with the lessons I've learned in the field. It offers a solution for security teams to measure the effectiveness of their controls, detect and respond to threats, and drive automation, ultimately reducing the cognitive burden of securing an organization.

Here’s my mission at Panther:

First, I want to help security teams win. By building a platform that supports their core workflows—running 24/7 to amplify their impact—I aim to empower teams to focus on what matters most. Panther’s platform is a force multiplier, extending my ability to make a difference.

Second, threat research should drive action. By developing non-linear threat models and sharing open-source detection rules, Panther can help organizations strengthen their defenses. I don’t believe in relying on a patchwork of technologies to stop adversaries magically. Instead, I want Panther’s customers and the broader community to have precise, actionable tools to control their security outcomes.

Finally, platforms are my passion. I founded Packetloop, a Big Data Security Analytics platform. I later led a detection platform team at Amazon, working with future Panther colleagues like Russell Leighton, Kostas Papageorgiou, and Matt Jezorek. Their drive and talent inspired me, making my decision to join Panther easy. I’m here to build a platform that empowers security teams to protect their organizations confidently, and I’m excited to do it with Panther.