Sophos appoints Dan Schiappa General Manager of End User Security Group

Sophos announced the appointment of Dan Schiappa as general manager of the Sophos End User Security Group. Schiappa will be based in Sophos’ Boston office and will report to Sophos CEO Kris Hagerman.

Schiappa comes to Sophos from RSA, the security division of EMC, where he served as senior vice president and general manager of the Identity and Data Protection Group. At RSA, Schiappa managed a business unit with annual revenue over $500M, and he had responsibility for engineering, product management, product marketing, an anti-fraud command center, and data center operations. At Sophos he will have full product responsibility for the company’s broad portfolio of end user security offerings, including endpoint, mobile, server protection, and encryption and data protection products.

Kris Hagerman, chief executive officer for Sophos, said, “I’m pleased to welcome Dan to Sophos. He has deep experience in the IT security landscape, and his background, drive and passion make him the perfect fit to accelerate our end user security strategy of delivering world-class on-premise and cloud-managed security solutions to protect our customers across their broad diversity of endpoints. We continue to add some of the brightest minds to Sophos as we look to become the world leader in delivering complete security without complexity for organizations around the world.”

Prior to EMC, Schiappa was at Microsoft, where he held several GM positions, including Windows security, Microsoft Passport/Live ID, and the company’s online display advertising platform. He also led strategy and corporate development for the Entertainment and Devices division.  As head of Microsoft’s security division, Dan led a 400-person product team responsible for developing the security infrastructure for Windows Vista/7 and Windows Server operating systems.  Also during his tenure, he was the key business leader for Microsoft’s BitLocker and Rights Management services.  Prior to Microsoft, Dan was the CEO of Vingage Corporation, a video server startup acquired by L3 Mobilevision, and was an executive at PictureVision, an online digital imaging startup acquired by Kodak.  Dan also held key technical roles at Informix Software and Oracle Corporation.

Schiappa said, “Sophos is poised to lead the charge for a more effective and simpler approach to securing users and data. The cloud will enable IT professionals and our partners to accelerate security deployment and simplify management in an ever changing landscape of malware, targeted attacks, and other security threats. And the continued innovations in end user and data protection will better safeguard enterprises of all sizes, whether they choose cloud or more traditional on-premise management.  It’s an exciting time to be at Sophos, and I’m thrilled to be part of the team.”