Trellix has announced the appointments of David Pieterse as Chief Operating Officer – Go-To-Market (COO-GTM) and David Soto as Chief Information Security Officer (CISO). The appointments strengthen Trellix’s leadership across go-to-market execution, strategic partnerships, and enterprise security.
Pieterse joins Trellix to lead GTM and accelerate execution across our core strategic growth engines. He will focus on empowering front-line teams with the velocity and clarity to win, translating our innovation into measurable customer value and driving durable, long-term growth.
“DP joins Trellix at a pivotal moment, as AI continues to transform the threat actor playbook, demanding organizations adopt a proactive, AI-native security response,” said Vishal Rao, CEO, 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 brings more than two decades of enterprise technology and revenue leadership at the intersection of cybersecurity, enterprise software, and data analytics. Most recently, he served as Chief Revenue Officer at Recorded Future, the world’s largest threat intelligence company, where he led all global revenue functions through the company’s acquisition by Mastercard. Before Recorded Future, he was Chief Revenue Officer at Snow Software, where he built and scaled the company’s global revenue organization through its acquisition by Flexera, and SVP of Global Revenue at Kong, Inc.
“The cybersecurity market is at a genuine inflection point, and Trellix has the security foundation, threat intelligence, and team needed to lead it,” said David Pieterse, COO-GTM, Trellix. “My focus will be on building the strategic relationships and execution mechanisms translating security innovations into measurable outcomes for our customers and partners.”
Soto will lead Trellix’s enterprise security program, drive its shared resilience transformation, and serve as the executive steward of Trellix’s Customer Zero program, exemplifying the defense-grade protection we deliver to customers within our own environment.
“David’s background in building resilient programs at scale is exactly what Trellix needs to advance our enterprise security mission,” said Vishal. “We’re adapting our security culture to address the realities of today’s threat landscape, and I am confident his leadership will further strengthen our foundation from within.”
Soto brings more than 25 years of cybersecurity leadership across regulated industries. Most recently, as Head of Infrastructure Security at Amazon, where he scaled a resilient security program across more than 4,000 sites and 30 countries, embedding security into global operations infrastructure from the ground up, including anomaly detection systems protecting employees working alongside automation and robotics at scale. Prior to Amazon, Soto also held positions at Check Point, Optiv, and Pacific Life. He has served on the board of the Orange County CISO Roundtable since 2017.
“Cybersecurity leadership today means more than defending a perimeter; it’s being a genuine partner to the business, operating with transparency, and building a program the entire team is proud to stand behind,” said David Soto, CISO, Trellix. “At a moment when machine-speed adversaries are redefining what resilience requires, I’m energized to join a team already at the frontier of this fight, and I look forward to partnering with them to continue strengthening the hardened foundation our customers rely on.”
