Deep Instinct has named Jim Ortbals as its vice president, Americas channels and Ryan Vaupel as its vice president, operations. The cybersecurity company stops unknown malware pre-execution with a purpose-built, AI-based deep learning framework.

In his new position, Ortbals will focus on growing Deep Instinct’s channel program, supporting existing partners and forging new relationships, while Vaupel will lay the foundation for operational excellence, the company said.

Deep Instinct’s Lane Bess

Lane Bess, chief executive officer of Deep Instinct, said the industry is at a tipping point with the rise of generative AI. AI promises to broadly increase not only the velocity of attacks but also the severity.

“It is a wake-up call for organizations to focus their attention on prevention and the only way we get there is with the most sophisticated form of AI — deep learning,” Bess said. “Jim and Ryan will both play an integral role for Deep Instinct during this time of immense growth.”

Deep Instinct and the Complex Threat Landscape

Ortbals most recently was in charge of Zscaler’s global service provider, MSSP and distribution routes-to-market. During his tenure, he worked with top partners across the globe. Over the past 20 years, he has held various global channel and field sales leadership positions at big names such as VMware and Cisco, and with late-stage startups such as Zerto.

Ortbals said that in today’s complex threat landscape, channel partners and customers are looking for innovation in cybersecurity, not more detection and response.

Deep Instinct’s Jim Ortbals

“The Deep Instinct Stratosphere Partner Program is bringing predictive prevention to our partners to lower risk for customers around the globe and the demand is growing,” Ortbals said. “My focus is to develop our partner ecosystem and ensure they have the right tools and solutions to be successful.”

Vaupel, who most recently was senior vice president of global operations at Zimperium and held a similar leadership position at Zerto (acquired by HPE), has nearly two decades of executive-level experience. He brings a combination of technology, enterprise sales, leadership, transformation and operations expertise to Deep Instinct, the company said. Throughout his career, he has had success building and leading action-oriented teams at both startup and Fortune 500 companies.

Deep Instinct’s Ryan Vaupel

“The status quo reactionary security model is failing to stop zero-day, ransomware, and other unknown threats until after they are already inside an organization. Deep Instinct’s prevention platform provides organizations with a proactive security model that prevents threats before they can execute in an environment,” Vaupel said. “I look forward to driving our organization at maximum operating efficiency to ensure we delight our customers, partners and employees.”