Stairwell Hires Eric Foster As Next Step in Strategic Expansion
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., May 18, 2023 — Stairwell, a leading cybersecurity company that empowers security teams to outsmart any attacker, today announced the appointment of Eric Foster as its Vice President of Business Development. Foster was previously President of Cyderes, a leading managed detection and response provider and the first managed security services provider for Stairwell’s flagship platform for automated threat detection and response.
“When looking to bolster our strategic growth, bringing Foster on board was a natural choice and an essential step,” said Mike Wiacek, CEO and Founder of Stairwell. “Foster was my thought partner throughout my time at Chronicle, and when Stairwell joined forces with Cyderes to expand its managed detection and response solutions earlier this year. He’s an information security expert with the business background needed to bring Stairwell’s vision to life — enabling more teams to thwart hackers’ repetitive evasion techniques.”
Foster has three decades of tech business experience and has spent 20 years building cybersecurity powerhouses from the ground up. He co-founded Cyderes with Gary Fish under Fishtech Group, which was later sold to Apax Partners and merged with Robert Herjavec’s Herjavec Group. Before Cyderes, Foster helped build and scale the cybersecurity company RiskIQ as Head of Customer Success before its acquisition by Microsoft for $500 million. Foster is a three-time CISO, a Certified Cloud Security Professional (CCSP), and a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) who also served on the leadership team at companies including UMB Financial and Netsmart. He previously co-founded MMAjunkie.com which sold to USA Today, and served as an advisor to multiple companies including Onspring and PhoneFactor.
At Stairwell, Foster will spearhead customer experience and direct the overall go-to-market strategy. His leadership will encompass sales, marketing, and customer success, as well as the Stairwell Threat Analysis team.
“After two decades in cybersecurity, I’ve observed a stagnant industry approach to the mounting challenge security teams face,” says Foster. “Mike Wiacek and Stairwell have built a revolutionary solution that I believe is going to change the cybersecurity industry. They are redefining how we fundamentally approach detection and response, so we can solve today’s security problems to get ahead of attackers. I could not be more ready to join this industry revolution that Mike and the whole Stairwell team have already launched.”
About Stairwell
Stairwell helps organizations take back the cybersecurity high ground. The Stairwell automation platform empowers security teams with automated threat detection and response capabilities as a force multiplier across security operations, threat hunting, and incident response to help outsmart any attacker. Acknowledged by Fast Company as one of the most innovative companies of 2023, Stairwell was founded by security industry leaders and engineers from Google and is backed by Section 32, Sequoia Capital, Accel, and Gradient Ventures, as well as angel investors Eric Schmidt and Michael Ovitz. For more information, visit www.stairwell.com or connect with us on Twitter or LinkedIn.
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