Malwarebytes stalwart promoted to chief product officer

Akshay Bhargava has been promoted to the role of chief product officer, Malwarebytes has announced.

He moves into the role after previously holding the  position of senior vice president of products, and joined the company after serving in key leadership roles at Oracle, FireEye and McKinsey - Company.

Bhargava is responsible for driving the company's technology vision, product roadmap and execution. Bhargava's innovative approach to product management has been influential in bringing new, cutting-edge methodologies to Malwarebytes product development, the company says.

Through his leadership, products are incorporating the latest developments in cloud-based delivery, holistic security, modern user experience and advanced automation. Bhargava has also increased the focus on data-driven decision-making and customer obsession.

"Akshay has been an incredible partner with product development, enabling our long-term product vision. His leadership has been instrumental to our continued growth and success," says Marcin Kleczynski, chief executive officer, Malwarebytes.

"Akshay has done an outstanding job spearheading the development of new products, and has dramatically impacted the evolution of our solutions," he says.

Under Bhargavas leadership, Malwarebytes has introduced several product innovations. This includes an enterprise-based Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) solution now used by over 1,500 customers; OneView, which provides over 2,000 Managed Service Providers with a central dashboard; a Malware Removal Service (MRS) for organisations under active attack; Browser Guard for safe and ad-free browsing; and Malwarebytes 4, the latest edition of Malwarebytes flagship consumer product.

Browser Guard has over 500,000 customers since its launch in September this year, and Malwarebytes 4 has over 1 million installations since its release in early November.

"To foster a culture of innovation, I encourage my team to empathise with key customer challenges," says Bhargavas.

"This has helped us to better implement ease-of-use and highly automated security for growing organisations. The Malwarebytes 2019 State of Malware Report demonstrates that the Asia Pacific region experienced massive increases in backdoor malware and the use of exploits against endpoints.In order to stay ahead of these sophisticated attacks and reduce overall mean time to respond to threats, we continually experiment and rapidly prototype in both consumer and enterprise markets," he explains.

"With over 5,000 new enterprise customers and more than 280 new hires in 2019 alone, we are poised for continued expansion and growth," adds Kleczynski.

"We look forward to growing our reach and accelerating sales to help more businesses and consumers live free from cyber threats."