Company increases new business by 67% in 2018, adds new leadership to accelerate global expansion and product innovation, with a people-first approach
FULTON, MD – Jan 08, 2019 - Sonatype, the leader in automated open source governance, today announced an expanded senior management team with the appointments of Kristin Davidson to Vice President of Human Resources, Tyler Shields to Vice President of Strategy and Business Development, and the promotion of Dalton Menhall to Vice President of Sales - The Americas. All three bring decades of experience to crucial business functions, helping to accelerate Sonatype’s already rapid growth and pace of innovation.
These key changes come on the heels of a record 2018, and are an important part of supporting Sonatype’s mission to help modern organizations build better software by harnessing the power of open source. 2018 highlights include:
“Our mission is to empower software development teams with precise open source intelligence and to help them avoid flawed open source libraries that could increase cyber and other risks.” said Wayne Jackson, CEO of Sonatype. “Our rate of growth makes it critical to bring in leaders like Kristin and Tyler, and to elevate outstanding performers like Dalton. I am anxious to see where they help take us in 2019.”
Contributing to Sonatype’s growth has been the company’s continued investment in features that automate critical parts of the application development process while uniting software developers, security professionals, and IT operations. In this DevSecOps union, organizations are empowered to continuously identify and remediate open source risk, while also accelerating innovation.
Last year, in their report “Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2018: Continuous Adaptive Risk and Trust,” Gartner forecasted that “by 2019, more than 70% of enterprise DevSecOps initiatives will have incorporated automated security vulnerability and configuration scanning for open-source components and commercial packages, up from less than 10% today.” Heading into 2019, Sonatype is well positioned to support those enterprises and continue growing into the future.
Dalton Menhall, VP of Sales - The Americas
Dalton Menhall joined Sonatype as a sales director in 2015, following more than a decade at IBM. He was quickly promoted to oversee all East Coast sales in 2016, and has been in that capacity since. Since joining Sonatype, Menhall has proven to be an indispensable asset with a unique ability to effectively recruit, and initiate a highly communicative and energetic sales culture. In his new role, he will oversee all aspects of sales in The Americas region and manage a team of regional sales leaders. He will work closely with Wai Man Yau Sonatype’s VP of international sales and report directly to Bill Smith, Sonatype’s SVP of global sales.
Kristin Davidson, VP of Human Resources
Kristin Davidson joins Sonatype following 14 years at InfoReliance Corporation as the company’s first executive-level hire dedicated to formalizing programs around its people-focused culture. She is responsible for developing and leading all human resources programs, policies and processes. Davidson brings an exceptional track-record of leading human resources teams for mid-size and large IT firms. Most recently at InfoReliance, she helped the company grow to a staff of over 400, while increasing diversity, streamlining onboarding and bridging the gap between management and employees. Davidson will report directly to Dave Miller, Sonatype’s CFO.
Tyler Shields, VP of Strategy and Business Development
Tyler Shields joins Sonatype from CA Technologies, where he was focused on guiding future product and business strategy for all security product lines and business units. Prior to CA, Shields helped build a high tech security startup from just a dozen to nearly 100 employees. He brings experience that includes starting, leading, and growing companies such as Signal Sciences, Veracode, Symantec, LURHQ, Secureworks, and @Stake. Shields also served as a principal analyst at Forrester Research providing guidance on mobile, applications and IOT security. In his role at Sonatype, he’ll be focused on expanding strategic partnerships and building out new growth initiatives, globally. Shields will report directly to Bill Karpovich, Sonatype’s SVP of strategy and corporate development.
About Sonatype
More than 10 million software developers rely on Sonatype to innovate faster while mitigating security risks inherent in open source. Sonatype’s Nexus platform combines in-depth component intelligence with real-time remediation guidance to automate and scale open source governance across every stage of the modern DevOps pipeline. Sonatype is privately held with investments from TPG, Goldman Sachs, Accel Partners, and Hummer Winblad Venture Partners. Learn more at www.sonatype.com.