Abnormal Security, a San Francisco-based email security provider, has hired former Exabeam, Forescout, and McAfee leader Mike DeCesare to lead its expansion into the U.S. government, Japanese, and German markets. DeCesare will be responsible for bringing Abnormal’s technology to enterprise organizations in non-English-speaking markets, as well as federal agencies focused on cloud transformation.
At 57 years old, DeCesare recently stepped down as CEO of Exabeam in June, citing the need to balance his health and lifestyle. He expressed his enthusiasm for Abnormal’s cybersecurity product, calling it the best he has ever seen in the industry. DeCesare will take on the role of President at Abnormal, overseeing marketing, sales, and customer success functions. This move allows co-founder and CEO Evan Reiser to focus more on Abnormal’s research and development and engineering operations.
Prior to his time at Exabeam, DeCesare spent six years as the CEO of IoT security vendor Forescout, where he took the company public at an $800 million valuation. He also served as President of McAfee for four years when it was owned by Intel.
DeCesare identified the U.S. government as Abnormal’s biggest untapped opportunity, given the prevalence of hardware-based, on-premises email security tools installed across federal agencies. Despite resistance to cloud technology in recent years, DeCesare mentioned that the Department of Defense and other agencies are now fully embracing cloud usage. Abnormal’s R&D team will drive the FedRAMP authorization process, and DeCesare believes the company won’t face significant challenges in obtaining a sponsor due to the ease of installing their technology. However, entering the government sector will require a long-term commitment from Abnormal, along with hiring sales reps, sales engineers, and support staff familiar with working with federal agencies.
DeCesare aims to generate half of Abnormal’s revenue from outside the United States. He sees Japan and Germany as attractive markets, given their significant investment in email security. To penetrate these markets, Abnormal will need to train its natural language models in Japanese and German, localize its product to match common suppliers, and hire in-country R&D, sales, marketing, and support personnel.
Regarding Abnormal’s financial performance, DeCesare’s appointment coincides with the company’s announcement that it has surpassed $100 million in annual recurring revenue, just five and a half years after its establishment. In May 2022, Abnormal closed a $210 million Series C funding round, valuing the company at $4 billion. The funding will allow Abnormal to expand its account takeover prevention technology to other systems and SaaS platforms beyond email, such as Workday and Salesforce.
DeCesare believes that the company’s rapid growth will instill confidence in customers and generate more inbound interest. Forrester has classified Abnormal as a strong performer in enterprise email security, praising its ability to block malicious emails. However, Forrester also noted that Abnormal has limited plans to add capabilities covered by email infrastructure providers.
Looking forward, DeCesare aims to maintain customer retention rates above 95% while increasing net recurring revenue to 120% by selling non-email security products to existing customers. Abnormal also plans to expand its presence among Fortune 500 organizations and continue its path to profitability.
Overall, with Mike DeCesare’s leadership, Abnormal Security is poised for expansion in the U.S. government and international markets, driven by its innovative email security technology and strong financial performance.