CEO Ankur Shah characterized the hire as a response to market momentum that has exceeded internal forecasts. Puthucode arrives with a track record of scaling emerging security categories, having previously led next-generation product growth at Zscaler and steered the cloud firewall business at Palo Alto Networks through a fourfold expansion. His background also includes a pivotal role at Elastica, where he managed the company’s transition from a cloud startup to a category leader under Blue Coat and Symantec.

Straiker, which recently secured $85 million in total funding, is currently building out its international leadership bench. The addition of Puthucode follows the appointment of Andrew Bartlam to oversee EMEA sales, with further expansion into the APJ region planned. Puthucode noted that the integration of AI agents into the enterprise workforce necessitates a distinct security category, one he intends to define by scaling Straiker’s research and go-to-market discipline.