Late last week, Splunk tapped Gary Steele to take over as the security and observability-focused data platform’s next CEO.
When Steele replaces interim CEO Graham Smith on April 11, he will also take a seat on the company’s Board of Directors.
Smith has been interim CEO since November 2021, when Doug Merritt stepped down from the top spot after six years on the job. He will return to his previous role as Chair of Splunk’s Board.
Steele brings over 30 years of tech industry experience scaling SaaS operations and growing multi-billion dollar global enterprises. He spent the last 20 years as the founding CEO of Proofpoint and steered the SaaS company from an early-stage start-up to a publicly-traded tech firm. While at Proofpoint, he presided over 70 straight quarters of growth. Before that, Steele was the CEO of Portera and held senior roles at Sybase, Sun Microsystems and Hewlett-Packard.
“I’ve dedicated my career to helping companies around the world safeguard their data, systems and infrastructure, and know firsthand how critical Splunk’s products and solutions have become to customers as they navigate hybrid, multi-cloud environments with increasingly complex attacks and threat actors,” Steele said in a press release. “Splunk is executing against a tremendous opportunity, and I look forward to working with the team to ensure the business reaches its full potential.”
On Friday, Steele told CNBC that he hopes to be a “stabilizing force” for Splunk, which reportedly held talks with Cisco to be acquired by the tech conglomerate. The talks came during a positive year for Splunk, which just last quarter reported a record $3.12 billion in annual recurring revenue (ARR), up 32% year-over-year.
Splunk isn’t satisfied with crossing the $3 billion threshold and has its eyes set on generating $5 billion in ARR with Steele at the helm.
“Gary is a visionary leader whose software and cybersecurity expertise, deep understanding of SaaS and recurring revenue models, and unwavering commitment to driving innovation and customer success on a global scale will be invaluable to Splunk on our path to $5 billion and beyond,” Smith added in the company’s press release.
