Shape Security Adds Execs From Palo Alto Networks, Sencha And Mozilla To Expand Exec Bench

PRESS RELEASE

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA--(Marketwired - Nov 4, 2013) - Shape Security, a startup developing a new type of web security technology, today announced three hires to strengthen the company's executive team: Mark Rotolo, VP of sales; Michael Coates, director of product security; and Dr. Ariya Hidayat, director of engineering. Founded in 2011 by leaders from Google, the Pentagon, and major defense contractors, Shape's highly-accomplished team positions the company for immediate success in protecting organizations against sophisticated and dangerous attacks.

"Michael, Ariya, and Mark have exceptional track records and could work anywhere in Silicon Valley," said Derek Smith, CEO of Shape Security. "They chose to join Shape because our technology is game changing for every website and web application which handles important data."

Michael Coates, director of product security at Shape, was previously head of security at Mozilla, where he built the security program from the ground up to protect Firefox and other products. Coates is also the Chairman of OWASP, the worldwide organization dedicated to web application security, with over 40,000 participants in more than 100 countries.

"Maybe once every ten years, a new technology hits the market that truly changes the way companies think about security. Shape's technology is that next leap," said Coates. "They are operating on a different layer of the security problem than anyone else. I am thrilled to help build this product."

Dr. Ariya Hidayat joins Shape as director of engineering. He is the author of PhantomJS, a widely-used web testing and automation framework. Hidayat joins Shape from Sencha, where as engineering director he led a team building hybrid HTML5 run-time platforms. He also created Esprima, which serves as the foundation of many JavaScript tools.

Mark Rotolo is Shape's new vice president of sales. He has 25 years experience in technology sales, leading three companies to acquisition for a combined $628 million. Rotolo most recently served as vice president of sales - West at Palo Alto Networks, where he helped grow revenues from zero to over $350 million per year.

"What is most exciting to me is how broadly applicable Shape's technology is," said Rotolo. "I am looking forward to rapidly growing our efforts to help organizations protect themselves from dangerous attacks which no other product or solution can defend against."

The three join a team which includes Google's former click fraud czar and the former general manager of Cisco's Application Delivery business unit. The company also announced in October that Dr. Xinran Wang, the creator of Palo Alto Networks' WildFire product, had joined Shape as chief security scientist.

Shape Security is currently in private beta and will be launching its public product in early 2014.

About Shape Security

Based in Mountain View, California, Shape Security is a startup developing a new category of web security products. The company has raised $26 million in Series A and B funding from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Venrock, Google Ventures, Allegis Capital, Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt's TomorrowVentures, former Symantec CEO Enrique Salem, and top executives from LinkedIn, Twitter, Square, and Dropbox. Shape has a world-class team hailing from Google, the Pentagon, Cisco, VMware, major defense contractors, and other leading corporations. The company's patent-pending technology will provide customers with a fundamentally better approach to protecting websites against modern web attacks. Shape is hiring. Visit shapesecurity.com to learn more.