New Cyera CRO On Data Security Surge, AI Partner Opportunities In 2026

Steve Rog, who has just been promoted to CRO, says the fast-growing data and AI security startup is doubling down on partner enablement and eyeing an MSP expansion.

Cyera foresees massive opportunities ahead for channel partners in 2026 with demand surging for data and AI security capabilities that can meet modern customer needs, according to newly appointed Cyera CRO Steve Rog.

The fast-growing startup told CRN exclusively that Rog, a cybersecurity veteran who joined Cyera in its early days, has been promoted to CRO from his prior role as vice president of worldwide sales, effective Wednesday.

In an interview with CRN, Rog said the partner opportunities going forward are expansive amid stunning growth for Cyera’s data and AI security platform.

For Cyera, “every way in which you would measure a company, in terms of leading indicators—all of the metrics are off the charts,” he said.

Rog’s promotion to CRO follows the $540 million Series E funding round closed by Cyera in June, which doubled the company’s valuation to $6 billion.

A top player in the red-hot space of data security posture management (DSPM), Cyera has expanded to offer data loss prevention (DLP)—and in April debuted its Omni DLP offering that provides unified, adaptive data security across all environments and tools.

Then in August, Cyera announced another major expansion move with the debut of its AI Guardian platform. The offering consists of AI-SPM—which offers a complete, granular AI asset inventory—as well as AI Runtime Protection for real-time monitoring and response around risks related to AI data.

Looking ahead, Cyera will stay focused on “how we can continue to solve this incredible challenge of adopting AI and doing so in a secure and responsible way,” Rog said.

In terms of its work with the channel, Cyera will also double down on partner enablement over the coming year and is eyeing an expansion into working with MSPs, as well, he said.

MSP is “not something we do with partners yet today, but is definitely of interest to a growing number of partners,” Rog said.

Cyera Channel Chief Dave Rogers, a veteran of Netskope and Palo Alto Networks who joined in April, reports to Rog.

Rog, who was formerly an executive at vendors including C3.ai and Forescout, initially joined Cyera in October 2022. Founded in 2021, the startup had only one salesperson at the time that Rog joined, he recalled.

“The growth has been significant, and in a very short period of time,” Rog said.

What follows are five key statements from CRN’s interview with Rog.

AI-Driven Growth

“We have taken that [data platform] foundation, which is fundamental to who we are, and now we're building a significant amount of product modules utilizing that context. And AI is a significant part of that. Our largest deal this year was definitely a deal that was tied to an AI application. There's two things that power AI — data and chips. Historically [for Cyera], it's all been DSPM and security, but now we're seeing many conversations start to [focus on] how they want to utilize data, how they can streamline their AI efforts. And I think we're becoming a very significant part of that conversation.”

Biggest Differentiators

“We started foundationally, in a very purposeful way, to build out the ability to consume all of this data with speed and accuracy. And now there's a host of different things that we can do with that — but we're very much focused on data and what we can do to help protect companies. That now is turning into [enabling] adoption of AI because these things go hand in hand. So I would challenge that nobody has the ability to chew through data as fast as we do, as accurately as we do. That was a really remarkable decision by the team to focus and make sure we got that foundation right. And now the things that we can do with it, the possibilities are endless.”

Latest Product Moves

“AI Guardian is what we're most excited about, no question. Omni DLP has been a resounding success. These worlds are merging, no question. Because back in the day, DLP was very much a manual effort. And that's why it's been such a struggle. As we look into the future here, I think AI Guardian is going to be a natural fit for these three products to coexist in a way where they're working together and providing a platform, if you will — an AI brain.”

Future Opportunities With MSPs

“I see a number of [partners] wanting to maximize the service opportunity and wanting to turn into an MSP with us. They want to manage the Cyera solution. They see how sticky and how deep they can get within a customer environment to help them solve these problems. [MSP] is not something we do with partners yet today, but is definitely of interest to a growing number of partners. And internally, we are entertaining the possibility.”

Message To Partners

“I started my career at a channel partner. I know the power of the channel. We are now getting into a motion where we've taken the enablement that we've built internally, and we're now taking that to the channel community to enable them in many ways. We're doubling down on that effort. We will do all of our business through the channel community — 100 percent. The partner team alone has [grown] 6X since the beginning of the year. So we are very much committed to the channel community.”