Illumio, Inc., the Zero Trust Segmentation company, today announced the appointment and promotion of Ben Verghese to Chief Technology Officer (CTO). The former Chief Architect has nearly 30 years of experience overseeing engineering and architecture teams across the cloud and security space. As CTO, Verghese sets and oversees the technology innovation and security strategy for Illumio, reporting to Andrew Rubin, CEO and co-founder.
“Having spent the last decade playing an essential leadership role for Illumio’s product and engineering teams, I could not think of anyone better to guide our technology and innovation strategy at this critical turning point for our organization,” said Rubin. “As cyberattacks become increasingly pervasive and sophisticated, the need for Zero Trust Segmentation has never been more urgent and it’s an essential part of an organization’s cyber resilience strategy. Ben deeply understands our customers’ challenges and will use his decade of experience here to drive and accelerate our innovation in areas such as cloud and AI.”
Verghese previously served as Illumio’s Chief Architect, where he set the near- and long-term architectural vision for Illumio. Before that, he spent nearly ten years as the organization’s SVP and VP of Engineering. Prior to Illumio, Verghese was VP of Engineering and Chief Management Architect at VMware, where he was part of the ESX Server product founding team, and led and delivered the VirtualCenter product from its inception. He has prior product, architecture, and research experience at HP, Apollo Computers, DEC Research, and Compaq. Verghese has a BS from IIT Madras, an MS from Cornell University, and a PhD in Computer Science from Stanford University.
“Throughout my time at Illumio, the organization’s product vision has remained consistent: create Zero Trust Segmentation technology that prevents breaches from becoming catastrophic outcomes,” Verghese said. “As market adoption accelerates, and as Illumio expands its product portfolio, I am confident that our team will realize this vision by working closely with our customer base. I’ve never been more excited about the opportunity ahead, and I look forward to expanding on this product vision in my next chapter at Illumio.”
Zero Trust Segmentation, also known as microsegmentation, is now recognized globally as a necessary and effective approach to reducing the attack surface and containing the impact of breaches. According to the recent Gartner Market Guide for Microsegmentation, by 2026, 60 percent of enterprises working toward a Zero Trust architecture will use more than one deployment form of microsegmentation, which is up from less than 5 percent in 2023.
