David Pieterse takes over go-to-market as Amazon’s former infrastructure security head, David Soto, becomes Trellix CISO and owner of the Customer Zero programme.
Trellix has appointed David Pieterse as COO for go-to-market and David Soto as CISO to lead its AI-native security expansion. Pieterse joins from Recorded Future to manage strategic partnerships, while former Amazon security head Soto takes charge of the internal enterprise security and Customer Zero programmes.
Trellix has appointed David Pieterse as chief operating officer for go-to-market and David Soto as chief information security officer, filling two senior roles as the company pushes its AI-native security pitch at enterprise buyers.
Pieterse takes charge of go-to-market execution and strategic partnerships across what Trellix describes as its core growth engines, with a remit covering front-line sales teams and partner relationships. Soto runs the company’s internal enterprise security programme and takes executive ownership of Customer Zero, the initiative under which Trellix deploys its own products across its own estate.
“DP joins Trellix at a pivotal moment, as AI continues to transform the threat actor playbook, demanding organisations adopt a proactive, AI-native security response,” said Vishal Rao, chief executive, Trellix. “He is uniquely equipped to execute on this market opportunity, building the engine and trust necessary to turn this momentum into sustained growth and resilience for our customers and partners.”
Pieterse arrives from Recorded Future, where he was chief revenue officer and led global revenue functions through the threat intelligence firm’s acquisition by Mastercard. He held the same title at Snow Software, building out its revenue organisation ahead of the Flexera acquisition, and was senior vice president of global revenue at Kong. His career spans roughly two decades across cybersecurity, enterprise software and data analytics.
“The cybersecurity market is at a genuine inflection point, and Trellix has the security foundation, threat intelligence, and team needed to lead it,” said Pieterse. “My focus will be on building the strategic relationships and execution mechanisms translating security innovations into measurable outcomes for our customers and partners.”
Soto joins after a spell as head of infrastructure security at Amazon, where Trellix says he scaled a security programme across more than 4,000 sites in 30 countries, including anomaly detection systems covering employees working alongside automation and robotics. He has previously worked at Check Point, Optiv and Pacific Life, and has sat on the board of the Orange County CISO Roundtable since 2017. His cybersecurity career runs to more than 25 years, largely in regulated industries.
“Cybersecurity leadership today means more than defending a perimeter; it’s being a genuine partner to the business, operating with transparency, and building a programme the entire team is proud to stand behind,” said Soto. “At a moment when machine-speed adversaries are redefining what resilience requires, I’m energised to join a team already at the frontier of this fight.”
Rao pointed to internal culture as the reason for the CISO hire. “David’s background in building resilient programmes at scale is exactly what Trellix needs to advance our enterprise security mission,” he said. “We’re adapting our security culture to address the realities of today’s threat landscape.”
Neither appointment carries a stated start date, and Trellix has not said whether the roles are newly created or replacements.
