Cylance CTO Chisholm, One Of Its First Employees, Leaves The Security Vendor

Cylance CTO Glenn Chisholm has left the company, CRN has learned, the latest in a series of changes at the next-generation endpoint security vendor.

Chisholm was one of the earliest employees at Cylance, joining the company shortly after it was founded in 2012 to direct its strategic product and mathematical direction. Chisholm also led the company's research and development teams.

Cylance confirmed Chisholm's departure in an email to CRN.

[Related: Sources: Cylance Hit By Layoffs, Company Says Cuts Are Part Of Overall Realignment]

"We founded this company with a group of highly creative technologists and Glenn is one of them. He’s had another big idea and is pursuing that while remaining on the Cylance Board of Advisors. We are big fans of Glenn, and he remains a valuable advisor to Cylance," a spokesperson said.

CRN reported last week that Cylance had gone through a round of layoffs, which the company confirmed and attributed to a "realignment" to focus on new products and geographies. Cylance said in an email to CRN that Chisholm's departure was "definitely" not related to the recent layoffs.

Cylance did not comment on whether there was a replacement for the CTO role. CRN reached out to Chisholm directly for comment but has not heard back.

Cylance did not confirm Chisholm's exact departure date, but the executive has been removed from the company's website and had been listed as CTO as recently as February 27. Chisholm's LinkedIn has not yet been updated to reflect his departure or a new position.

Cylance remains one of the fastest-growing private cybersecurity companies, with $11.1 million in revenue in 2015 and a 7,613 percent three-year growth rate, according to the 2016 Inc. 5000. The company has also landed a huge amount of venture capital funding, including $100 million in Series D funding in June, one of the largest by any security company last year.

However, Cylance has also faced increasing pressure from competition in the endpoint security market heats up, with legacy security vendors looking to take back share and competitors in the endpoint security market, such as Crowdstrike and Carbon Black, looking to move into the company's next-generation antivirus space.

Chisholm has been at the company since 2012, joining Cylance from Telstra, where he was chief information security officer and director of security operations. Before that, he held positions at Cisco. Chisholm announced in November that he was joining the board of directors at security automation startup Hexadite.