Bringing cyber risks under control

"Organizations are struggling to minimize cyber risks while controlling costs and complexity," says Frank Kölmel. "In addition, they have to deal with new regulations regarding data handling, governance and digital sovereignty. At the same time, artificial intelligence is increasing the frequency of threats and making processes ever more complex. Bitdefender is uniquely positioned to address these challenges. We have advanced cybersecurity functionalities in our portfolio that reduce risks, optimize operations and strengthen cyber resilience. I look forward to working with customers and partners to turn security into a business enabler."

Kölmel has extensive leadership experience in scaling global go-to-market models in the cybersecurity market. Most recently, he was CRO at security company Guardsix, where he led global customer teams in the areas of new customer business and existing customer development. Prior to that, as President and General Manager Americas and EMEA at security provider Cybereason, he was responsible for sales management and customer care in several regions. In senior positions at Palo Alto Networks and FireEye, he was also involved in the development of global sales units and partner ecosystems.

"Frank has a wealth of cybersecurity expertise, deep market knowledge and a proven track record of scaling sales globally," said Andrei Florescu, President and General Manager of the Bitdefender Business Solutions Group. "His leadership will be instrumental in further increasing our market presence, further strengthening the Bitdefender partner ecosystem and rolling out highly effective security solutions. Organizations need these offerings to mitigate risk and navigate increasingly complex and growing attack surfaces."

Threat situation significantly changed by artificial intelligence

The new CRO joins Bitdefender at a time when the threat landscape posed by artificial intelligence is changing significantly and presenting companies with new operational challenges. The company points to its many years of technological development and the trust of international customers and believes it is well positioned to meet the growing demand for solutions against increasingly automated and complex attacks.

The portfolio includes the GravityZone platform for security, risk and compliance as well as solutions for Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) and integrated Managed Detection and Response (MDR) services.

With PHASR (Proactive Hardening and Attack Surface Reduction), Bitdefender also offers an endpoint security solution that combines behavior-based protection mechanisms with real-time intelligence to prevent ransomware, fileless attacks and so-called Living-off-the-Land (LOTL) techniques in particular.