Global cybersecurity leader Forcepoint today announced transformational technology business leader Shayne Higdon has joined the company as chief operating officer (COO). Higdon reports to CEO Matthew Moynahan and will be based in Forcepoint’s Austin, Texas headquarters.
As COO, Higdon will drive Forcepoint’s operational strategy leading the company’s engineering, product management, customer success, operations and service organizations as the company grows to more than one billion in revenue. He will bring a strong operational focus further expanding the company’s global industry leadership, growing market share of the company’s unique human-centric cybersecurity strategy, and optimizing the alignment and prioritization of company investments.
“Forcepoint understands business transformation within today’s data-centric world and to be effective, modern cybersecurity requires we place people and data at the center of security design thinking,” said Matthew Moynahan, chief executive officer of Forcepoint. “As we work with our global customers and partners to propel forward this critical industry paradigm change we need transformational business leaders who understand how to drive operational success in a dynamic industry still maturing. As Forcepoint COO, Shayne Higdon brings more than two decades of impressive strategic, operational and commercial accomplishments perfectly aligned to drive and extend the next-generation of Forcepoint’s market leadership.”
Higdon was most recently the senior vice president of ESO Strategy and Operations for BMC where he led the strategic transformation efforts across BMC resulting in the acquisition by KKR. Prior to that he was president of the Performance and Analytics product line at BMC Software, Inc. In this role, he was responsible for BMC’s TrueSight portfolio of performance management and capacity optimization products including driving new innovation for artificial intelligence for IT operations (AIOps).
Prior to BMC, Higdon served as the president and CEO of Symplified, an identity management-as-service company acquired by RSA. In addition, Higdon held senior leadership roles at Quest Software including SVP and general manager of the user workspace and application performance management business units. He also served as SVP and managing director of the corporate development team where he led mergers and acquisitions, corporate venture investing, corporate strategy and business development.
“The cybersecurity industry today is at a dynamic tipping point of consolidation and disruption that will see only the strongest security players still standing in the next three to five years. Forcepoint is a trusted and truly differentiated security company in this crowded market of niche players,” said Higdon. “The company’s human-centric approach and behavioral-intelligence based enterprise security platform uniquely understands today’s modern threat landscape and provides organizations a trusted path forward optimized for any environment. Forcepoint is nimble and our strategy is compelling and I believe the company will uniquely win within today’s fragmented cybersecurity market. I look forward to helping lead the company to its next phase of innovation tied to operational excellence.”
Higdon is currently a member of the board of directors at vChain, a provider of the first de-centralized, tamper-proof platform that enables trusting software through the use of blockchain technology. He holds a bachelor’s degree in computer information systems from the University of Mary-Hardin Baylor.
About Forcepoint
Forcepoint is the global human-centric cybersecurity company transforming the digital enterprise by continuously adapting security response to the dynamic risk posed by the behavior of individual users and machines. Forcepoint solutions deliver risk-adaptive protection to continuously ensure trusted use of data and systems. Based in Austin, Texas, Forcepoint protects users and data for thousands of enterprise and government customers in more than 150 countries. For more about Forcepoint, visit www.forcepoint.com.
