Leadership & Executive Communication , Training & Security Leadership

Mimecast Appoints Marc van Zadelhoff as New CEO

Microsoft Exchange security specialist Mimecast announced the appointment of a new CEO on Tuesday, marking the first time the cloud security firm has had a new leader since its founding in 2003.

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Peter Bauer, Mimecast co-founder and CEO, said in a statement that he is "pleased to pass the leadership torch" after "an amazing and busy 21 years."

Bauer, who remains on the board of the company, will be replaced by Marc van Zadelhoff, a co-founder of IBM's $2.5 billion security practice. He most recently served as CEO of the cloud-native security analytics company Devo.

Van Zadelhoff said he was "drawn to Mimecast because it protects against today's most urgent cybersecurity threats," including "employees collaborating in an ever more dangerous world."

Van Zadelhoff also celebrated his new appointment - which begins Monday - in a LinkedIn post, writing: "As a CEO, it's pretty unique to start a job with such confidence in the board, founders, and investors you're going to work with."

The change in top leadership comes less than two years after the private equity firm Permira took Mimecast private following a $5.8 billion acquisition.

The move also comes just seven weeks after Proofpoint, an email security firm and top competitor of Mimecast, announced the appointment of former VMware President Sumit Dhawan as CEO (see: Proofpoint Snags Former VMware President Sumit Dhawan as CEO).

Michail Zekkos, chair of the board of directors overseeing Mimecast, thanked Bauer for his "exceptional leadership and impact" and said, "We couldn't be more delighted to welcome Marc as Mimecast's new CEO."