Versa Networks Strengthens Marketing Team

Versa Networks, the enabler of single-vendor Unified Secure Access Service Edge (SASE), has announced that it has named Dan Maier, a former executive from GreyNoise, Anomali and Zscaler, as its new Chief Marketing Officer.

In his role as CMO, Maier will lead Versa’s global marketing organization, including market strategy and positioning, branding, public relations, demand generation, digital marketing, product marketing, and channel and partner marketing.

Further adding to Versa’s growing marketing organization, the company has named Gopal Bhagia, former Senior Director of Global Demand Generation at Tenable, as its new VP of Demand Generation; and Kevin Sheu, former Bitglass Marketing leader, as its new VP of Product Marketing.

“I am excited to join Versa Networks at such an exciting and critical time for the company and the growth of SASE,” said Mr. Maier. “Versa is the clear market leader, with products architected from inception to natively integrate comprehensive security and networking functionalities. This is exactly what organizations need to simplify how they protect and connect their users, devices and sites. I look forward to helping the world understand what a great company Versa is, and also driving our growth and visibility during this pre-IPO expansion period for the company.”

Maier has more than two decades of experience in executive leadership roles at emerging growth companies in cybersecurity, SaaS and AI. He has led marketing teams at companies ranging from seed-stage startups to public companies, and he has deep cybersecurity marketing experience from GreyNoise, Anomali, Zingbox, Cyren, Zscaler, and Tumbleweed Communications.

Bhagia comes to Versa from Tenable Networks where he served as Senior Director for Global Demand Generation. Prior to Tenable, he had extensive experience in marketing automation/MarTech, product go-to-market strategies, and software development. Sheu previously held product marketing and marketing leadership roles at Bitglass, Vectra AI, Okta, FireEye, and Barracuda.

“We are thrilled to significantly expand our marketing team, and to have these three proven executives lead our marketing organization for the next phase of the company,” said Kelly Ahuja, CEO of Versa Networks. “Dan’s successful track record in cybersecurity, SaaS and AI will be of great benefit for Versa as we build our company for the future. With Dan, Gopal and Kevin we are well positioned to propel our continued lead in the rapidly expanding SASE space and execute on our growth trajectory.”

Versa simplifies how enterprises protect and connect their users, devices and sites to workloads and applications anywhere, anytime. As the leader in SASE, the fastest growing category in cybersecurity, Versa is the only company delivering a differentiated Unified SASE architecture that converges security and networking to ensure an improved security posture, enhanced user-to-application experience, and operational efficiency.

Prior to joining Versa, Maier served as VP of Marketing at internet scanner intelligence company GreyNoise, CMO of threat intelligence platform leader Anomali, and VP of Marketing at IoT security company Zingbox (acquired by Palo Alto Networks). He has also held senior marketing and strategy roles at Cyren, Zscaler, Tumbleweed Communications, and ABB. Maier earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Stanford University and an MBA from UCLA.

In his previous role Bhagia managed Global Demand Generation for Tenable Networks, where he collaborated with cross functional marketing teams and had a successful roll out of a pipeline-focused data driven ABM and Digital Marketing program. Prior to Tenable, he worked in the FinTech industry, where he managed growth-focused marketing teams and the marketing technology stack. He holds an undergraduate degree in Computer Science and a Master of Science degree in Information Technology from Pace University, NY.

Sheu previously ran product marketing and marketing teams at Bitglass, FireEye, Okta and Barracuda. He also served as a strategy and technology consultant for L.E.K. Consulting and Booz Allen Hamilton where he worked with Global 2000 companies, private equity firms and government clients in the areas of network architecture design, top-line growth, market entry execution, investment due diligence, and customer / profitability analysis. He holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in Computer Science from the Johns Hopkins University, as well as an MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management.