Application Security
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Next-Generation Technologies & Secure Development
Roche Replaces Sam King, Who Joined Veracode in 2006 and Became CEO in 2019
Veracode tapped product leader Brian Roche as its next CEO and tasked him with helping secure the adoption of large language models and open-source software.
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The Boston-area application risk management vendor appointed Roche chief executive just two days after purchasing startup Longbow Security to give companies a centralized view of risk for cloud assets and applications. Roche replaces Sam King, who joined Veracode in November 2006 and became its CEO in January 2019 after Thoma Bravo purchased the CA Technologies unit from Broadcom for $950 million (see: Veracode CEO Sam King on Joining AppSec, Container Security).
“Seventeen years is a long time, unless of course you are having fun, and what fun I have had at this amazing place,” King said on LinkedIn on Wednesday. “It is time for a change, and I will be moving on with deep gratitude for having had the opportunity to be a part of this journey.”
What Led Roche to Becoming Veracode’s Next CEO
Roche ascended to the role of CEO after spending over three years as Veracode’s chief product officer, during which time he spearheaded product strategy, product management, engineering and operations. Roche focused on shortening the time between code production and flaw remediation so developers could focus on critical tasks that drive value and differentiation.
As CEO, Roche plans to address the next frontier for software security and risk management, which is fueled by rapid AI advancements and the proliferations of cloud-native technology adoption. Roche wants to enable businesses to safely adopt AI technologies such as large language models and open-source software to fuel rapid innovation and business value and expedite the transformation process.
“It is time for a change, and I will be moving on.”
– Sam King, former CEO, Veracode
Prior to joining Veracode, Roche spent a little over a year leading cloud operations and engineering at Medidata Solutions, over two years leading Cognizant’s digital business, and 15 years at EMC before and after it was acquired by Dell – during which time he oversaw software engineering as well as engineering for cloud management, SaaS and Documentum.
“It has been a privilege to work alongside Sam, and I am honored to build on the strong position she leaves the company in as the leader in the application risk management market,” Roche said in a statement.
Bringing Risk Management to Cloud-Native Environments
Roche takes the reins as CEO days after the company bought Longbow Security, which – when combined with Veracode – will allow cyber teams to discover cloud and application assets quickly and assess their threat exposure using automated issue investigation and root cause analysis. The Austin-based company, founded in 2020, employs 30 people and raised $5 million in seed funding in August 2022.
“Security teams are drowning in alerts that lack sufficient detail on the level of business risk, degree of exploitability of a flaw, and specific code-level insight to keep pace with remediation requirements,” Roche said in a statement. “As a result, risk continues to accumulate.”
Combining Veracode and Longbow will give organizations a unified view of risk across applications, code and cloud, enabling them to tackle whichever issues matter most. Orchestrating remediation from code to cloud, meanwhile, will make it easier for teams to prioritize and remediate whatever issues they find, according to Roche.
The joint company will advise customers on the best next action to take so that they can conduct a root cause analysis and pinpoint the best path to remediation, according to Veracode. Plus, customers will know exactly what is running and where through continuous monitoring and assessment, which will focus on discovering vulnerabilities across both application portfolios as well as runtime environments.
“We founded Longbow with a mission to simplify an increasingly complex application security risk management process and help organizations reduce risk at scale,” Longbow Chief Product Officer Derek Maki said in a statement. “By joining forces with Veracode, our combined solutions provide unmatched visibility, automation, and remediation capabilities for security and engineering teams.”
The acquisition of Longbow Security comes 16 months after Veracode purchased Crashtest Security to automate security testing with a user-friendly scanning tool. Veracode’s headcount has fallen by nearly one-fifth from its September 2022 high of 841 workers to just 675 employees today, according to IT-Harvest. TA Associates in May 2022 purchased a majority position in Veracode at a valuation of $2.5 billion.