Cobalt names Eric Brinkman as Chief Product Officer
Cobalt announced it has named Eric Brinkman as its new Chief Product Officer.
In this role, Brinkman will lead Cobalt’s product vision, enhancing the existing suite of offerings and identifying innovative ways to meet and exceed the needs of current and future customers.
To accomplish these goals, Brinkman will be responsible for defining Cobalt’s three year product strategy and fully rounding out Cobalt’s product team with key hires.
“Seeing what Cobalt has already done to disrupt and further the pentesting space has been remarkable to witness,” said Brinkman.
“I believe there is an enormous opportunity to build upon Cobalt’s successes to date by better connecting antiquated workflows like pentesting to modern development workflows. Having the opportunity to join Cobalt at this phase of growth is incredibly exciting.”
Brinkman is a seasoned technology industry veteran, with 15 years of experience driving and sustaining long-term product growth.
Previously Senior Director of Product at GitLab, Brinkman founded the company’s very first growth team, which evolved into a critical component of the company’s business approach.
He built and managed product teams that innovated on widely successful GitLab product features and functionalities, and developed new product areas within the company such as Compliance Management, Design Management, Requirements Management, and Quality Management.
Notably, Brinkman led the product team that secured GitLab’s placement on the 2020 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Agile Planning Tools.
Previously, Brinkman also led product activities for Rackspace’s Managed Security business unit, and was responsible for the product development of Rackspace’s cybersecurity and service offerings.
Brinkman’s hire comes on the heels of an explosive year of growth for Cobalt. In 2020, the company saw demand for PtaaS surge across industries and ended the year with more than 350 new customers.
Cobalt saw annual recurring revenue grow 75 percent and delivered more than four thousand pentest credits. By the end of 2020, the company team expanded its headcount by 50 percent and is poised to add 100 more full time employees in 2021.
Dr. Chenxi Wang, PhD, cybersecurity strategist and former vice president at Forrester, notes in the Pentest as a Service Impact Report 2020 that “more companies are pentesting 100% of their applications on an annual basis” and that “one of the factors that helps to propel the more extensive use of pentesting is DevOps.”
“Cobalt is experiencing exponential demand as organizations realize the need for an optimized and streamlined pentesting experience,” said Jacob Hansen, Co-Founder and CEO of Cobalt.
“Eric’s wealth of experience building and executing successful product teams and strategies will support Cobalt’s ongoing and long-term growth efforts. This new hire kicks off an exciting new chapter in the company’s history.”